Animorphs 55: The End
by MrEpic92
Summary: My take on everything after the last Animorph book. I am now finished posting and will be starting to post my story follwing right after this.
1. Prologue

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

**Prologue**

**RACHEL**

Rachel the Animorph turned around with a curious look.

"Yeah?"

**I HAVE A PROPOSITION.** I wanted her to accept because without her the Animorphs were incomplete.

**I CAN GIVE YOU YOUR LIFE BACK.** As soon as the words left my mouth she hanged a look of utter bewilderment on her face. **YOU'RE FRIENDS ARE IN TROUBLE AND THEY NEED YOUR HELP.**

"What happened to them?" She said sounding quite concerned.

**CRAYAK HAS UNVEILED A NEW CREATION; IT IS CALLED THE ONE BECAUSE HE BELIEVES IT WILL BE THE ONLY THING THAT CAN DEFEAT THE ANIMORPHS AND GO ON TO HELP RULE THE MANY UNIVERSES OUT THERE.**

"What sort of powers does he have?"

**THE ONE HAS THE ABILITY TO TAKE OVER ONE WHOLE SPECIES AND ONE HOST BODY AT THE SAME TIME.**

She understood immediately. "Which one?"

**WHAT DO YOU…?** "Which one of the Animorphs has he taken over?" Her anger gradually building up.

**AXIMILI-ESGARROUTH-ISTHILL, THE ANDALITE**. She was now sure about exactly what she wanted to do.

"I'll go." I was glad she agreed to go because her fellow Animorphs would need all the help they could get.

**BEFORE YOU GO RACHEL, I HAVE ONE QUESTION.**

"Go for it, great master of the universe"

**I WANT TO KNOW WHICH ANIMORPH YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE FIRST, SO I CAN TELEPORT YOU TO THEM.**

"You're kidding me right?"

**NO.**

"I would like to meet Jake first."

This surprised me, because I had not bothered to read her mind but I was sure she would say Tobias.

**ARE YOU SURE?** I asked waiting for a reply.

"Why wouldn't I?" I moved on to further matters.

**ALSO RACHEL YOU WILL NOT BE 16 LIKE YOU WERE YOU WILL BE 4 YEARS OLDER LIKE THE OTHER ANIMORPHS. **

"Twenty huh? Let's do it!"


	2. The Awakening

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

**Chapter 1: Jake**

My name is Jake. To my friends I am known as Jake the leader. To Ax I am known as Prince Jake. To The One I am known as Jake the Yeerk killer. The last thing I should have heard was an ear splitting crash or explosion at least.

My eyes opened and I saw Jeanne standing over me. "Captain, we have a problem."

"What's wrong" I said feeling a huge bruise on my head.

"This is the problem." She said showing an open hand to our surroundings. I looked around the ship was tilted to its side and the way out looked like it had been forced open. There was broken glass all around me, from all the controls and some electrical sockets and wires were ripped and frizzing out colourful sparks. There was quite a lot of water everywhere.

"How did you get the door open?" She smiled. "We used a bunch of tools which were on the ship already. Come on we have to go and catch up with the others."

She helped me up because I still felt dizzy. Once we got out of the Rachel I looked around to see hundreds of people looking straight at me from the floor up. Some were screaming others were saying things like "Hey it's the Anemarphs" and already I could see what was around me…water everywhere we were in a pool but it wasn't that big.

It wasn't that deep either like 4ft deep or something. Me and Jeanne swam through and climbed on to the bridge right next to it and saw a dozen or so security guards standing around Marco, Santorelli and Menderash. And one of them was looking like he was arguing with Marco. Santorelli was hurt he had a nasty cut down his right leg and was kept up by Menderash who was supporting him.

"Santorelli, you alright?" As soon as I was done all the guards looked around and pointed their weapons at me.

I put my hands above my head and walked slowly up to Marco and the main security guard. "My name is Jake Berenson and I am the leader of the Animorphs."

"I am aware, but do you want to tell me what you are doing with a Spaceship in the middle of West Edmonton Mall?" He was a big muscly black man but he had a very calm voice.

"Me and my crew went up into space in search of a another spaceship which was run by the only non-human member of the Animorphs, while there we encountered an unknown alien named The One who had taken over his body and was planning to kill us but I ordered my pilot to ram their ship and next thing I know I wake up in a world renowned shopping mall in Canada."

He laughed. So did the other guards reluctantly. "And I'm supposed to believe this."

"You better, or in a week the president will call you personally and tell you how wrong you were for putting me and my friends in jail."

Five minutes later we were out of there, the guards let us go after calling Adrienne Clarkson the governor general of Canada, who shouted at them for being such idiots.

She told them to get the fire department to clean up the mess. Before they even started Menderash took a bag out of the ship and then he returned to us.

"You're the man, Jake." Marco said with too much enthusiasm. "What do we do now" Menderash was right I had no idea how to solve this weird situation.

"Wait, where's Tobias" I had totally forgotten about him. "Oh yeah I knew I forgot something." Marco said casually. A red-tailed hawk flew down through the front doors of the mall and landed on a bench to the side.

**Guys, follow me.** He flapped out through the front doors and we followed him.

Once we were out I saw what Tobias was so eager to show us. Three brand new Lamborghini Gallardo's were parked on top of a giant platform as a part of a raffle, probably something to do with the mall.

**While you guys were arguing with the guards I went out and snagged the keys of all three of these beauties because I knew we needed a way to get back to the US. There are six of us and each of these cars are two seaters so we'll fit in fine.**

"Jake is no longer the man, Bird-boy has taken his title." After 5 minutes of arguing with Jeanne. Marco got to drive the black one with Menderash, Jeanne driving with Tobias in the green one and I was driving the silver with Santorelli seeing as he was hurt.

"Why don't you morph, that must kill." I asked him. "I didn't want to spook anyone because those guards were getting really twitchy."

"Smart thinking you can morph now there's no problem of hiding your morphing power because we Animorphs are quite the celebrities." I said this as people were taking pictures of us in the parking lot and saying "Check it out it's the Animorphs they rule!"

"Especially that Jake guy he's the leader." "Yeah he's hot!"


	3. The Betrayal

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

**Chapter 2: Cassie**

"Cassie, check out what's on TV!" I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Ronnie was sitting on the couch; his eyes glued to the screen.

"What's wrong?" I turned my face and saw a big black security guard talking calmly.

"So there you have it this dedicated security guard has solved the situation. He was forced to confront a spaceship containing two of the Animorphs: Jake Berenson and Marco Santos."

I could hardly believe it. I had been waiting for them to return for countless months .I was just glad they were safe and back on Earth. Although I wondered why Tobias wasn't mentioned.

"Hey Cass, I'm gonna back now and finish the rest of the work I have." I nodded in agreement. I noticed some bluish-purple blood on his shirt.

"Why is their Hork-Bajir blood on your shirt?" I asked waiting desperately for a rational explanation.

"You know there was sick Hork-Bajir, a baby one and he coughed up some blood…" As he was talking he walked up to me slowly. "You look really nice today, and we hardly get to spend time together anymore."

Something was wrong.

SMAAACK!!

Everything started to fade and all I could see was black.

"You're an idiot; you should have never made her a part of this plan."

"If I didn't we would not get this near to the Hork-Bajir."

I was reviving slowly. I tried to get up but they had tied me to a tree. "Oh good you're awake, I'm Matt and I and my friend Ronnie here hate these…" The words after that were just rude.

"They have too much power, they could destroy us and they will eventually."

I felt sick inside, how could Ronnie be the one attacking the Hork-Bajir; he seemed so nice and genuine when I first met him, that's what made me start to like him. "What should we do with her?" Ronnie asked Matt as if I were some toy, only to be kept to be thrown around helplessly and played with.

"Matt, go check if there are any of them around and take the shotgun." Of course he was talking about the Hork-Bajir and speaking of Hork-Bajir there was one to my left about 20ft back. Matt had gone to the right and had already disappeared.

"What are you staring at?" Ronnie turned around to find him self facing Toby the Hork-Bajir and one of my good friends.

She lifted him up and said "If we scare you, that's good." Twenty minutes later, I was told I have a mild concussion because I was hit round the head with a shotgun. And Matt and Ronnie were taken away by the police.

"Thanks for saving me Toby." I gave her a hug avoiding the blades all over her body.

"You are welcome Cassie the Animorph." At that point I was glad the Hork-Bajir were free, they deserved to be free.


	4. The Ressurection

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 3: Rachel**

All around me there was sand; dust a few cactuses and nothing else. I was standing on a dusty road which was empty. No cars, motorbikes or vans in front of me.

VRRROOOMMM!!

I had forgotten to check behind me. Three from what I could tell Lamborghini's were speeding at about 275mph straight at me. They noticed me standing there and the first one swerved to my right. The second swerved to my left and the last one stopped just inches in front of me.

"Don't you know how to drive?" I shouted, first at the green one to my right then the silver one to my left and finally to the black one right in front of me.

The doors of the green one opened revealing Tobias and some girl. Then the silver one opened and out came Jake and some older guy. Then out of the black one Marco and some other man stepped out.

"Rachel!" It was Tobias he ran up to me, grabbed me and kissed me for what seemed like hours. We broke apart to hear Marco wolf whistle and Jake look simply confused.

"How did this happen, I thought the polar bear killed you and it has been like four years since your death. We even had a funeral."

"It was the Ellimist he gave me back my life because he said you all were in trouble and needed my help." The guy standing next to Jake spoke up.

"Yeah well, long story short we were up in space looking for Ax and then we found The One and he wasn't exactly someone cool with our welcoming committee. And then the next thing we know is we crash land in West Edmonton Mall."

"No way!" I had been there once; my dad had taken me when I was 6.

"I see dead blonde people!" It was Marco smiling like he actually had some charm in him. "What are you staring at Marco?"

"I'm still getting over the whole you returning back to life." He smiled at his own non-existent wit.

"You seem older." Tobias blurted.

"The Ellimist changed my age to what it would have been if I was still alive."

"So do you think I can get a ride?" I looked around at all the Lamborghini's in front of me.

"Of course, Rachel." Jake had finally spoken up. "That reminds me, Jake I have to talk to you."

"Come in this car you can sit in Santorelli's lap." I don't think Tobias was too happy at what Jake said.

"No, if this is the Rachel then Tobias and Santorelli should swap places so she can sit with her Boyfriend." Tobias started blushing.

"I agree with…" I began to say. "Jeanne Gerard, the guy standing next to Marco is Menderash he's an Andalite nothlit and that's Sergeant Santorelli. We helped Captain Jake on his mission to find Ax and Menderash was part of Ax's crew."

"I was the only survivor apart from Prince Ax and I came to inform Jake about the situation." Menderash explained.

I sat in the silver Lamborghini in Tobias' lap with Jake driving and Santorelli went to sit in the green one with Jeanne. Jake then explained about the situation and Tobias explained what happened to every Animorph in the last 4 years, but he was careful to leave himself and Jake out. I would have to ask him in private later.

"Rachel?" It was Tobias, after Jake and he had explained they were both silent and I was getting an anger vibe from both of them which were aimed against each other. That too would have to be dealt with once we got back home.

"Yeah."

"Don't die on us again. The Animorphs without a Rachel just doesn't feel right."


	5. The Pain

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 4: Ax**

I was beyond pain and he was enjoying it. The One had me trapped like a controller. He could do whatever he wanted with my mind.

The things he had made me do over the last few days made me cry, a now fully grown Andalite cry. I felt sick inside. I would never be the same again.

There were Ten controllers on the ship. Six Hork-Bajir. Four human controllers. All the battle morphs of the controllers were strong: two Wolves, one Rhinoceros and the Polar bear that killed Rachel.

He had first captured me and he had the Hork-Bajir controllers torture me and then once I was weakened The One took over my mind.

He made me kill my whole crew, gruesomely. I could not begin to describe the horror. But I could not resist, I was helpless trapped in my own mind by a beast worthy of the highest fires of hell.

"What are you thinking about Aximili?" He was teasing me, he was a part of me he knew I was scared.

**I am thinking of how to kill you.** He started laughing hysterically.

"Come on now, I know you are bluffing because I can feel your mind."

He said the same thing to Jake, how much I missed my prince, how much I missed all of my friends Marco, Cassie, Tobias and poor Rachel dead before she even lived. I missed of all them.

We were on the Blade ship and the Kelbrid spacecraft that attacked the Intrepid had gone back into space.

"Do you want to know my plans for your little friends" I did but still, I replied with.

**A plan that will never work.**

"You continue to annoy me."

**Gladly.** He ignored me and began to explain his plan.

"You're friends will most likely get together and plan a defensive maneuver to stop me from me even stepping these dainty hooves on Earth."

He stared at the floor then jolted his head back up.

"So instead of coming myself, I will order the Kelbrid race who are under my control to ambush the Andalite home world."

"While that is order I will send four Kelbrids to Earth to kill the Animorphs and then I will come shortly after and take over Earth and make my master proud."

Crayak.

I could see his mind all he thought about was Crayak his creator.

How will the Kelbrid fly to Earth? He only has one spaceship. Also how will they find the others? I thought to myself, but there was two minds in this one body.

"Ah good question, you are getting smarter Andalite filth. The Kelbrids have the ability to fly endlessly and they do not need air to breathe, they create their own. And I got DNA samples off your body when they have touched you, that's how they are tracking you."

The Kelbrids, though I had not seen them sounded quite dangerous and adaptable.

"Are you scared? Because yes they are dangerous and extremely capable of adapting, they are your worst nightmare Andalite and soon enough they will reach Earth once they are done with your home world and they will destroy every human there.

**Like my friends, the humans would say 'Screw You'.**

Even though I had said this I was still afraid my friends would get killed.

"All you Andalites are the same just as arrogant as I was informed. Your race will soon be extinct."

He paused to smile in the mirror to his left into which we stared endlessly.

"And you Aximili-Eggsarouth-Isthill will be the last Andalite alive in the universe, here to remain my pet."

The One was right, I was afraid, I was very afraid.


	6. The Dream

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 5: Marco**

I was dreaming. And I did not want to wake up.

My dream was about ice cream. Chocolate too, with some pizza and some tacos. If their was any cigarette butts or cinnamon buns this could have been Ax's dream. But he was trapped, not until we rescued him.

"Marco, get up we've stopped to refuel the cars." It was Menderash.

I got out of the car to see Santorelli asleep in the green Lambo and Jeanne walking to the toilets at the service station.

"Is there anything to eat at this place." He shook his head and pointed to the dirty grimy service shop. The food was probably contaminated any way.

Tobias was in the air pulling some of the craziest flips known to bird. I guess he got a kick out of it or maybe because he wanted to keep his distance from Jake.

"Why wake me up?" I asked of the Andalite nothlit. He replied instantly.

"I was bored, i thought maybe you could keep me company."

"Great idea."

Jake was about to go pay for the gas. Money that I brought along in case of emergency, when Rachel grabbed his hand.

"Jake are you sure you're ok?" She looked into his eyes like a concerned big sister. "Yeah I'm fine" He said it, but he definitely didn't look it.

"I mean you didn't even give your cousin a hug." She moved up to Jake and gave him a hug reluctantly he hugged her back.

Jake suddenly went crazy. "I can't do this, this is all like some dream. I mean we are driving and you end up in the middle of the road like you were never dead. You were dead Rachel, you were just a nice looking jar full of ashes. And then you're perfectly fine standing in front of us with not even a scratch on you."

Jake went quiet after that, he didn't say a word just slopped on to the ground and started crying.

"Every day I would go to your grave and not one day did I stop thinking that maybe Tobias was right, that I had sent you to your death that it was my fault. I'm sorry Rachel. I'm sorry." It really was a sad site to see my boy Jake tear up like that although I understood his pain he was living with the fact that it was his fault Rachel was dead.

Rachel helped him up, wiped his tears and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"I forgive you, after all it was my decision and you're like a brother to me."

"You have got to stop with all the drama."

Come on I had to make to make a joke. I'm Marco the funny one if I can't crack jokes than what good am I.

"Really, I heard you were living the life! Must get pretty dramatic for a prom queen like you." Jake started laughing, it was good that he was happy again I had gotten tired of him being depressed and sad I mean come on I need my best bud back.

"Rachel Berenson, you feisty kitten you, you're just so fetch!"

We all got back in our sweet rides and drove off in to the sunset, hopefully finding our way home in time for dinner.


	7. The Anger

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 6: Tobias**

We arrived at Yellowstone Park safe and sound.

But I was angry, just angry. I was angry at Rachel for forgiving Jake, well not really I was really happy to see her but I was angry at Jake for what he had done to her and angry at Marco for making silly jokes all the time.

Yellowstone was where Cassie lived now.

It was like a cabin with trees and a whole lot of forest surrounding it.

We could see Hork-Bajir here and there while we walked through to her house. As we passed the Hork-Bajir would smile and wave.

We were a diverse group standing outside the house ringing a door bell waiting for Cassie to open the door. There was Rachel (still wearing the same excited look), Jake (still a idiot for sending Rachel to her death), Marco (still a humorous opportunist) and Jake's very own fan club (Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash).

Don't get me wrong they were cool; I just didn't see the need in them risking their lives when the dysfunctional Animorphs were around.

"Rachel?" We turned around to find Cassie standing there with a bunch of firewood in her arms. She dropped the firewood and ran to hug Rachel.

She started crying out of happiness and asking how this happened. She then went to hug me and Marco and then she hesitated just a little before hugging Jake.

We introduced her to Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash. Jake then told them to get some rest, they had a rough year.

Jeanne went back to her apartment and Jake said she could take the green Lamborghini and Santorelli was about to leave when Menderash said.

"Jake I have no home on Earth where…?" Santorelli interrupted by saying.

"Menderash you can stay with me. I'll show you my Robert De Niro DVD collection: Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Untouchables. What more could you want?"

After Jake had sent them with the silver Lamborghini it was just the Animorphs. We had a meeting discussing what we would do now that the apocalypse was probably upon us.

Cassie fixed us some food. It was nice of her seeing as we were all hungry.

We learned that Ronnie, Cassie's boyfriend was the one who was behind the attacks on Hork-Bajir in Yellowstone. And we told Cassie and Rachel what we called our spaceship. Rachel was so honored she gave me, Jake and even Marco a hug.

This would most likely leave Cassie single and she and Jake could get back together.

Not that Jake deserved it. Seeing as how his order sent the one I loved to death.

Now that she's alive I should be happy, but somehow I still feel angry at Jake I wish I could forgive him but what he had done had passed the limit of humanity.

He had literally sent his own cousin to death knowing the consequences.

That was something I would not agree with. I do not deny there was once a time when I looked up to Jake, but sadly that time has gone by.

"Tobias, your time in morph is running out, you should demorph back." It was nice that Rachel cared.

"Yeah stopping every 2 hours for you to demorph and remorph was more annoying than a Helmacron's ego."

"After a year in space you still haven't lost your sense of humour."

"Well Cassie, I do it just to impress you." Marco batted his eye-lashes in a dead-on impression of Rachel.

Once I demorphed I perched my self on a shelf full of photographs, photographs that when I looked at them I noticed they were of us: The Animorphs.

There was one I looked at especially.

It was one of us all at the mall; Cassie and Jake were sitting across from each other holding hands and looking into each other's eyes. Ax was scarfing down cinnamon buns with Rachel laughing facing the camera. Marco had two French fries stuck up his nose and was making a weird face.

I wasn't in the picture because I took the picture.

While I was looking at the picture, I noticed the others get up and look at the same picture.

Rachel started smiling when she saw Ax's picture.

"I miss him."

"We all do Rachel, we all do." Jake had spoken up.

I focused my thought-speech to only Jake.

**I'm in this war fighting with you. But I don't know if we can ever be friends again.**

I knew he heard me because he looked straight at me and for once his gaze was more intense than mine.


	8. The Kiss

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 7: Jake**

We spent the night at Cassie's. She and Rachel were going to sleep in the bedroom while me and Marco took the twin three seat sofas.

Tobias had disappeared into the night, probably because of me. We weren't exactly on the best of terms. I mean the guy just told me that we could probably never be friends again.

His friendship was one of the few things that mattered to me.

I couldn't get to sleep, so I got up and went to the bathroom.

I washed my face and looked myself in the mirror.

Was I the same?

Had I changed in any way?

I turned around suddenly. It was just Marco snoring. I came back in the living room to see Cassie in the kitchen.

I walked up to her slowly. I still missed her; I didn't know how we had drifted apart so much after the war.

"Hey, Jake." She wasn't even looking at me but she knew I was awake.

"What's up?" I tried to sound cool, something Marco would do but I wouldn't.

"I couldn't get to sleep." She smiled.

Her hair was different now; it was much longer and straight. I liked it.

"Me, too."

"Here try some of this." She handed me a glass of something yellow.

I drank up seeing as she was making my throat go dry. It was a banana milkshake, something we drank on our first date, it was after the Howler fight on the Iskoort world. I remember the milkshake because I wanted strawberry, but they were out of strawberry milkshakes so instead we got banana.

"Our first date." I said. She started laughing.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You have a milk moustache." She said.

She used a napkin to wipe it clean. We looked in to each other's eyes like at that exact moment we understood each other perfectly. And that's when her milkshake spilled all over my shirt from her hands.

Some of it fell on the floor, and Cassie knelt down to clean it up. "I'm sorry." I said sheepishly for no reason. The milkshake had soaked through my top about to get me sticky, so I took it off.

I then realized that Cassie had stood up and was looking at me.

She went to leave. But I grabbed her hand.

"Don't go Cassie; I've spent too much time away from you."

She turned around and smiled the smile that made me fall for her every time.

Then we kissed.


	9. The Minivan

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 8: Cassie**

We kissed like there was no tomorrow, like the apocalypse was upon us and it probably was what with Crayak making his newest creation devise a plan to kill us using his own very own race of creatures that we know nothing about.

Yeah so, I think it was appropriate for time.

We went back to bed, not the same bed. I went to my bedroom and he went to the couch.

I knew he couldn't get to sleep because neither could I. I turned around to see Rachel sleeping on the other side of the bed with her mouth open, she always slept like that. I remember when I use to have sleepovers around her house; she would do it then too.

That's how I knew this was Rachel and not some phony clone from planet Weird.

I had given Rachel some clothes to sleep in. I offered to give Marco and Jake some of Ronnie's clothes but they didn't want the clothes of a murderer.

I woke up later than any one the next day. Rachel had to throw several pillows at me before I woke up.

"Don't worry, Jake is no longer shirtless." He seemed to have gotten bigger; all of them had Jake, Marco and even Tobias. They were all ripped, a word I have probably never used before.

Maybe they didn't have much to do on their spaceship, so working on their bodily exercises would have been the macho thing to do.

I arrived downstairs to find Rachel perkily cooking eggs for Jake and Marco. "Come on; have a seat Cassie, I'm making pancakes too."

"Where's Tobias?" I asked Rachel, but Marco answered.

"He'd rather have mice than pancakes." Rachel hit him around the head with the newly arrived newspaper.

"Pass me that Rachel; I need to know what's happened since we've gone."

Rachel handed Jake the paper and he read it through. Their wasn't any thing out of the ordinary in the paper, so we subsided that we were safe for another day.

The thing we were most worried about was that we did not know when and where The One would attack with his army of Kelbrids.

We were all dreading that day.

"Marco, Cassie, I'm going to take Rachel to see her mom and sisters, do you want to go?"

"Yeah, sure." I wanted to spend as much time with Rachel and Jake. And Marco, I guess.

Once we ate we left and we walked through the forest with the occasional Hork-Bajir coming to greet me.

"Good Morning, Jen Halaa. How are you?"

"I am good very." the Hork-Bajir replied.

The Hork-Bajir were never the smartest species, but they were definitely the kindest.

We arrived at the edge of the forest and to my car. "Whoa, Cassie you know when we came here I was happy to see you and all and you let us crash at your naturist cabin and you look much prettier with your long hair, but now that I've seen your car I want nothing to do with you!"

"Is it really that bad?" I asked looking around at them.

"No, not at all it's just not what we expected, we thought you would go for maybe a mini not a mini van." Rachel was right.

"But when I saw it I thought it would be good for helping move Hork-Bajir who are injured and plus the seats fold down so there would be enough space for at least two injured Hork-Bajir."

"It's fine, Cassie."

"Thanks Jake."

Tobias flew out of nowhere, and landed on a dead log and started to morph to human.

"Cassie, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah Jake, go ahead." He grabbed my arm gently and took me to one side.

"Are you okay with the Ronnie incident?"

"No, Jake not really. I learned to love him but he used me. Turned out to be the kind of guy I would hate."


	10. The Happiness

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 9: Rachel**

I was quite excited when Jake said he would take me to see my mom. I mean for 4 years I hadn't seen her. And I couldn't exactly drive and go myself because I didn't have a license, I didn't know how to drive, I'm supposed to be dead and I have no idea where my mom lives now.

I hoped she had not suffered without me. I wondered what Jordan and Sara would be like too. Jordan would be 18 now and Sara would be 14.

How much had they changed?

Did they miss me while I was dead?

"You alright Rachel?" It was Jake and we were in the remaining black Lamborghini. Cassie was driving the minivan with Tobias and Marco.

Marco surprisingly volunteered to ride in the van because there was enough space for him to get some more sleep. And Tobias rode with Cassie just in case she needed some company. More like he needed to be away from Jake.

I felt sorry for Jake. He seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders when he made the decision: Me or everyone on Earth.

I would have made the same decision in an instant.

"Yeah I'm fine." I said putting on a smile.

"Good, because we're here."

Jake parked the car and we got out. Tobias was demorphing to hawk already on the front lawn. Cassie and Marco were walking up to the door.

We walked up to them and I went to ring the door bell but Jake stopped me.

"I have a key." He moved forward past all of us and unlocked the door.

I guess all of us were wondering why he had a key. Did he spend his time consoling my mother and sister after my death?

He signaled us to stay in the lobby. It was a nice house much cleaner than our last one and much more empty.

"I'll go in and say hi, Rachel you stay back" They all went into the living room and I could hear them talking to her.

"Good to see you Cassie after so long. Marco you continue to me amaze with your humour and charm." She sounded happy but I was about to make her a lot happier.

"Mom?" She was sitting on a single sofa at the edge of room with the others standing around her. She looked older, much older and paler than usual.

She looked at me as if I were a miracle right in front of me and yeah, I kinda was. She got up and walked slowly towards me. She brushed her hand past my cheek as if trying to see if I was real.

I started crying and she hugged me like any mother would. She didn't even ask how this happened she just accepted it.

"Rach, is that you?" I turned to look at Jordan and Sara they had come from upstairs.

I walked over to them and gave them both a hug at the same time. They too didn't ask how this happened, they were just happy to see their sister alive. "We missed you."

I stepped back to get a closer look at them. Jordan was no longer a child she was a woman, she was as tall as me but looked exactly like my mother with dark hair and eyes. Sara had more of my Dad features like me with wavy blonde hair only a bit different then mine.

We all sat down to tell them about what had happened in the last few days. While Mom told me what she did for the last few years. Me, Marco and Cassie also learned that Jake did come to meet my Mom to help her through hard times and sometimes to look after and spend time with Jordan and Sara.

I saw from out the window Tobias swooping up and down through the air, enjoying himself. All the time we were explaining, Jordan and Marco kept looking at each other and I feared the worst.

I remembered a time when Jordan thought Marco was cute and that was probably a phase, I hope.


	11. The Colloseum

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 10: Ax**

My name is Aximili-Eggsarouth-Isthill. And we had just reached Earth.

"You, land the ship." I said from a mouth I didn't have a few years back to a clumsy Hork-Bajir. The front screen showed us landing in a Collosseum.

Or more like The Collosseum in Rome, Italy. Considered to be one of the world's seven wonders. I had read about the Collosseum in the World Almanac years ago. And now it was most likely to be destroyed.

Once landed, we slowly moved out into the open. The Hork-Bajir walked behind us without Dracon weapons. It was foolish of them, Prince Jake and the others may still be alive.

"You do not understand silly Andalite, the Kelbrids would have caught them by now and made roast meat of them."

**We're not dead yet, Scumbag!**

He moved my head around to look for the sound we heard. A silly thing to do because my stalk eyes enable me to see my surroundings easily without having to move my head around.

In front of us a Gorilla, Tiger, Wolf and a Hork-Bajir assembled.

Marco, Prince Jake, Cassie and Tobias.

I found myself laughing. "Is that all you have?"

He sounded confident, but inside he was shocked at how they survived Kelbrid attack.

**We killed those Kelbrids of yours, what do you have next?** Jake was the one using the thought-speech. I could tell it was him because he was talking like he meant it.

"How did you survive?" I asked trying to sound curious.

We survived because we had a secret weapon.

They all looked back and a Grizzly Bear appeared out of the depths of the Collosseum.

**Rachel, you are alive.** What I said was only heard by The One, but he ignored it.

Rachel here died years ago and was brought back last year by the Ellimist. And he isn't too happy that you are running around trying to kill us and take over the world with your race of wimpy Kelbrids.

"Ah, you are smarter than I perceived you, Jake. But that doesn't mean you are undefeatable."

I noticed two Wolves, a Rhinoceros and a Polar bear appear behind me. They were nearly as tense as the six Hork-Bajir next to them, twitching with energy.

Ax, if you can hear me I'm sorry but I'm going to have to attack you when I'm done with these guys.

**I understand, Prince Jake. I would rather die than be a part of this hideous creature.** He obviously didn't hear me but I wanted to say it any way.

"Hork-Bajir attack, morphed animals stay back I want you to watch them get sliced to bits."

The Hork-Bajir and Animorphs ran at each other ready to attack under the moonlight shrouding upon the Dark Collosseum.


	12. The List

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 11: Marco**

12 hours ago.

A lot of things had changed in the past year.

For one, all but three Auxiliary Animorphs had survived. That wasn't the big shocker; the big news was that the three survivors were none other than James, the leader and his two lieutenants Craig and Erica, who were married to each other now by the way.

They agreed to help us with the oncoming danger which was still not here. We informed them about the situation.

Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash had agreed to help. Even Alloran and Toby had agreed seeing that they was getting tired of nice, normal Earth.

Menderash was a nothlit, so he wasn't much use before, although he had proved helpful. The bag that Menderash had taken out of the Rachel was a bag filled with suits.

Animorph suits that covered our whole body, even our feet. They were all black and had names on them and everything, he even made some for James, Craig, Erica, Santorelli and for himself he made some military type clothing with his name on so he could be part of the team too.

Jake said it would be too dangerous because he had no real strengths in a fight, but Menderash with the help of the Animorphs got his hands on some confiscated Dracon weapons and he learned how to use them quickly for a fight. He also learned how to fight with swords of all sizes, the closest thing to tail blades.

He was like the Clint Eastwood of Dracon beams and the Super Samurai of swords.

We also had frequent visits with our parents and updated them on the situation.

Jake had produced a list of all the active Animorph members, the ones that were used in fights. He got me to make it so it came out like this.

Original Animorphs:

Jake Berenson: specializes in quick thinking of plans. Is leader of the Animorphs. Butt-kicking morph is a Siberian Tiger.

Rachel Berenson: specializes in kicking butt and not being scared of anything. Is in charge of kicking butt. Butt-kicking morph is a Grizzly Bear.

Cassie Fern: specializes in animal knowledge and identifying emotions of other people. In charge of making sure we have a clear idea of our enemy's goals and how they work. Butt-kicking morph is a Wolf.

Tobias Craft (mother's maiden name): specializes in surveillance and scoping places out in his nothlit form. Is in charge of looking out for danger of enemies during times of vulnerability. Butt-kicking morph is Hork-Bajir.

Marco Santos: specializes in noticing the little things and flaws in the bad guy's plan. In charge of noticing and pointing these out. Butt-kicking morph is Gorilla. Is extremely awesome and cute.

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill: specializes in hacking in to organizations with my help occasionally and knowledge on alien species. In charge of informing us of alien species that are unknown to us or about unknown objects that could be of use and timing of morphs and missions. Butt-kicking morph is himself, an Andalite. He is currently inactive due to being taken over by a evil being called The One.

Auxiliary Animorphs:

James Waternay: Leader of Second Set. Thinks out of the box. Butt-kicking morph is a Lion.

Erica Green: Has growing knowledge in medicine and anatomy. Butt-kicking morph is a Jaguar.

Craig Maldorn: Has studied Andalites and Hork-Bajir along with other aliens. Butt-kicking morph is a cougar.

Toby Hamee: Hork Bajir warrior and seer. Highly intelligent and capable of fluent English. Fights as herself.

New Animorphs:

Alloran-Semitur-Corass: Leader of New Animorphs. Formerly taken over by Visser one has extensive knowledge about bad guys and how they think. Veteran tail-blade fighter.

Sgt. Andrew Santorelli: specializes in earth weapons and how to make them. Trained by Jake about morphing. Butt-kicking morph is Polar bear.

Jeanne Gerard: specializes in tracking and scents. Learned from Jake about morphing difficulties. Butt kicking morph is an African Cape Buffalo.

Menderash: Andalite nothlit. Specializes in designing armour and suits and Dracon weaponry. Only Animorph member to fight with Dracon weapons and swords and in his human form.

Oh and I forgot to mention things like I was dating Jordan for months now.

Rachel and Tobias were exclusively going out. So were Jake and Cassie but no one noticed except the Animorphs. But the problem was that Jake and Tobias were still not cool with each other. I didn't understand why because Rachel was alive.

Now that Jake had started training sessions of all types of things like combat, surveillance, information and stuff like that Tobias would be there doing all of it too.

I was at Cassie's house, helping her fix the minivan, because I felt I owed it to her. Dissing her ride and everything and she was the only one of my friends who wasn't freaking out about Jake and Tobias not being cool.

We were both their sitting drinking lemonade. Reminiscing on old times when it happened.

BOOOM!!


	13. The Arguement

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 12: Tobias**

It was raining heavily so I was in human morph. I had just come back from the grocery store; I went to get some ingredients for Rachel.

She was gonna make Casserole. Rachel and I had gotten a house together ever since we gotten back on Earth. I was the only person that was able to stop her when she started to get restless, we all had but she was taking it the worst. Without Ax we just felt empty but where would we look we have no idea where he is. We would just have to wait.

I had started to get used to my human morph and in the training sessions I started to use my Hork-Bajir morph, I would train with Toby nearly every day so by now I was very experienced with the Hork-Bajir blades.

Rachel on the other hand had been practicing gymnastics to get away from stress. I wonder who gave her that so called stress. Maybe being dead.

I had reached our street, when I noticed a car pull up and Jake get out of it. He walked up to my house and rang the doorbell, Rachel answered the door gave him a hug and took him inside.

I knew he was probably there to inform her of the next training session. But I didn't want him in my house.

I went up to the front door and unlocked it. As I walked in I heard laughter. Jake and Rachel were sitting next to each other watching TV. Rachel turned around and her smile faded. "Hey, we were just watching some movies. Jake got them from Blockbuster for me."

Jake got up off the sofa and went to leave. "I'm gonna go Rachel, I told Cassie I'd help Marco finish off the work on her Minivan."

"Stay for dinner, Jake." She grabbed his hand and pulled him back in to the living room. "Alright, I'll stay, if its alright with Tobias." He looked straight at me.

"Of, course its okay with me as long as you promise not to get my girlfriend killed." The hatred towards Jake just burst out of me.

"Tobias!" Rachel said angrily.

"What's your problem Tobias? Rachel's alive."

"You don't understand Jake. She was dead for four whole years. And because of you."

I turned to Rachel.

"You wanna know what I did when you died Rachel, I flew away, just flew away never to come back, never to see Jake's face, never to see you." I walked up to her and put my hand on her cheek. Tears started to well up in her eyes.

"You stay with Jake, watch your movie but now you have to pick: me, the one you said you loved or Jake your cousin, who sent you to your death."

I walked up to the door, opened it and walked out.

BOOOM!!

I fell forward on to the muddy grass. I was bleeding; there was a piece of glass stuck in my back. I demorphed to Hawk.

There was also another reason I demorphed. I was pretty sure that giant 6ft beetle flying in the air above me was most likely a Kelbrid going in to a dive to grab me.

I flapped my wings endlessly, hoping that any minute now the rain would stop. But the rain was as heavy as ever.

"Fly away, nothlit. But I am right behind you."

It was the Kelbrid speaking perfect English. Like my day wasn't weird enough.


	14. The Kelbrids

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 13: Jake**

The explosion blew the upstairs floor apart. I fell on top of Rachel. She went to get up but I pushed her back down and covered her face and body from getting hurt by all the debris falling from above us.

"Jake we have to get out of here!" I looked around to see the door open.

"Rachel come on let's make a run for the door." I grabbed her hand and we ran straight for the door.

WHAAM!!

I fell down after a giant piece of debris landed on my ankle. "Jake!" Rachel grabbed the piece of debris and lifted it up off my ankle.

The pain was killing me. Rachel grabbed me and lifted me up.

"We need battle morphs."

I morphed the Siberian tiger while half dragging myself into the open, out of the house.

Rachel was already finishing her Grizzly bear morph. Once we were out we came face to face with what looked like a giant beetle. It was about 6ft tall with two sharp rectangular horns sticking out of its head. It had four arms that were floppy but flexible. It also had two hairy feet like those of a fly, although much thicker. Its head were roughly triangular and it was black in color.

"If you come quietly Jake I will let the pet tiger live. It will much better for my master to see what I have captured for him."

I was shocked to hear my name from an alien I'd never seen. This was definitely the Kelbrid.

**He's not…!** I told Rachel to be quiet; we didn't want to give useful information for no reason.

The Kelbrid had mistaken me as the Grizzly bear. **Rachel, I want you to demorph.** I said to her in private thought-speech.

**I surrender; please do not hurt the tiger he will back away.**

As soon as Rachel was done demorphing, the Kelbrid was questioning himself.

"This is a female human, Jake you…" Before it could finish talking I ran full speed at the Kelbrid with claws out. He reacted just as fast and with two of his hands bent back to pull off his beetle shell. The end product was two shields with sharp ends. The perfect weapon. He slashed them at my shoulder and a mild cut bled from my fur. But before he did I managed to scratch his face which was now full of blood.

He spat the blood on the floor. "You'll pay for that trick, Jake!"

Before he was done talking me and Rachel ran out of there and turned right to find a school bus. We got on.

"Whoa, check out the babe!" "She's way out of your league, Justin."

That's what they said when Rachel got on. But when I got on everyone screamed and got off, like out of the window because my tiger body was obscuring the way out. Even the driver jumped off. Come, on hadn't anyone heard of the Animorphs we just had a world meeting announcing that Rachel and Tobias were back in action.

Two kids remained on the bus, the guy called Justin and some Asian kid with glasses.

"Wow, that's a tiger." Justin said in awe. "No, duh." The Asian kid replied.

Hey Justin, kid with glasses we are the Animorphs, you may of heard of us. You need to stay on the bus. It's too late to get off. I said this because I could see the Kelbrid hovering straight towards us with his killer shields out. Rachel takes the wheel, drive us to Cassie's house. She passed her driving test 4 months after we landed back on Earth.

Rachel sat in the driver's seat and started up the bus.

VRROOMMM!!

With the engine roaring we took off getting faster and faster while Rachel changed the gears, although the Kelbrid was still behind us.

It got close enough to crack the glass at the back of the bus. Justin started screaming. I had an idea, but I hoped it would work the way I was picturing it.

**Rachel keep driving don't stop for me.**

I ran full speed to the end of the bus and smashed through the glass. As I did I grabbed the Kelbrid. Everything seemed to slow down I could see the Kelbrid pull off his shell and plunge it into my tiger underbelly and I saw my pan-sized paw smack him straight in hs exposed stomach.

We both fell and rolled several times across the floor with glass surrounding us. When we finally stopped I saw a huge piece of glass stuck in the right side of its stomach. He was dying and I now knew the Kelbrids weak point.

I was hurt so badly I thought I would die there on that wet street.

But I still had a job to do; I demorphed and made my way to Cassie's house to see if she was hurt, or worse dead.


	15. The Paralysis

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 14: Cassie**

I was blown in to a tree which winded me. "Marco! Where are you?" I looked around frantically, my eyes trying to find Marco.

Marco was already half-way to Gorilla due to the fact that a giant flying bug was heading straight for him. Once he was done he ran straight for me and grabbed me in his gorilla arms and knuckle ran out of their.

**Cassie, you need to morph because there are two of them and I can't handle them however mighty I am.**

"Okay." I started to morph in his arms, as I shrank he held on to me to stop me from falling. "Let me go now, you keep running and turn back to the van…"

**And hide behind it, so you can lure those bugs to me and I jump out and attack. Great thinking, but you got a flaw in your plan, what if they separate.**

Before I could answer, he dropped me to face the aliens and turned off in the other direction. "Cassie, Marco, you both will not escape."

Some how that didn't surprise me. Seeing as in the end even the Yeerks knew who we were. These were undeniably the Kelbrids.

Now came the hard part the bugs were coming straight at me and I didn't have any way out of there except for past them. Why did I send all the Hork-Bajir to the museum today they could have come in handy.

I started running towards them and they got confused but not for long as I glided through the air, both of them pulled his shell off and in to two pieces and then sliced my left leg while the other got me on my abdomen.

**Ahhhhhh!** The pain was slowly taking over me, but I was still alive. The rain had stopped now. But I was still going as fast as I could, running straight at van.

Twenty feet…Fifteen feet…Ten feet.

WHAAAM!!

One of the aliens hit me with his two horns and I was down. I fell to the floor right in front of the charring, burning van. I was done, I was finished. The hit I sustained from his horns had stunned me.

But I had done my part of the plan. Marco jumped out from behind the van and caught one of the Kelbrids in the stomach. The other turned around to find gorilla fist in his face.

They were dead; the blows that Marco had made must have been hit in their weak points. And a gorilla punch isn't exactly a light jab.

**Cassie, you okay?** Marco was demorphing. **I can't move. I was hit by its horn, which seems to have paralyzed my body.**

BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEEP!

A school bus was racing through the woods towards toward us. Driving it so irrationally was none other than Rachel.

The bus stopped right in front of me. Rachel hopped out with two kids behind her looking worried. "Am I too late for the action?"

"Rachel, we intentionally left you nothing to deal with." The nice, caring Marco would probably not have lasted longer.

So no trouble except we still need to find Tobias and Jake.

That's exactly when a seemingly dead red-tailed hawk dropped on the hood of the van and a Kelbrid fell blindly from the sky and dropped to the floor.


	16. The Interrogation

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 15: Rachel**

"Tobias!" I ran up to him, not caring about the Kelbrid lying on the floor clutching his eyes. Justin started screaming again.

He was morphing meaning he would live. As soon as he was done demorphing I went to hug him but he gently pushed me away. Was he still mad about what happened before?

"What did you do so wrong that Tobias won't even let you touch him?"

"Shut up Marco."

I was tired of him making everything into a light-hearted joke. Though he was right in asking me what I had done to Tobias to make him so mad, but I really didn't know myself. Was it because I forgave Jake? Or was it because I spent time with him after what had happened.

We dragged the dead Kelbrid bodies out of the way, leaving the one alive propped up against the front of the minivan.

"We need to find Jake. He was in the school bus with me and the kids but then he leaped out the back of the bus and took one of these bugs with him."

Tobias was silent.

"Speak of the Daredevil." Marco pointed two thumb ups at some one right in front of him. Jake walking towards us.

"He's dead. The Kelbrid that attacked me." I was glad he was because these Kelbrids were really annoying.

Cassie looked like she wanted to hug Jake but she didn't. "Jake, one of them that went after Tobias is still alive but wounded."

"Good work guys." Jake walked calmly up to the Kelbrid. "Is The One coming to Earth?"

"Yes, to kill all you worthless freaks!" I couldn't resist. "Who you calling freaks!"

"Where is he landing?" The Kelbrid was blinded so he couldn't see our expressions of urgency.

"The Roman Collosseum. At midnight."

We asked the Kelbrid questions and he answered them all because we told him if he did not answer our questions than he wouldn't get to live like the other two who were still alive from answering all our questions.

After that we called the local police station to pick up the two kids. The Kelbrid died minutes later from all the blood loss.

We learned of The One's plan, how the Kelbrids got to Earth and all about the Kelbrids, how they fight, where those bombs came from and how big a threat their species were. Very useful information for someone who was paying attention.

"So what do we now great leader, have you yet another plan that will tantalize our taste buds." Marco was glad how his joke came out.

"I think we need to talk to Menderash, about getting a ship."

"What would we do with that ship?"

"We fly to Rome, and kick butt. Rachel style."


	17. The Swap

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 16: Ax**

Madness, all around me. Hork-Bajir falling as hard as the Pillars of this very Collosseum.

**Is that all you have.** Rachel, the supposedly dead Rachel who was now miraculously alive.

Even the morphed controllers were destroyed easily. Rachel killed the very Polar bear that took her life 5 years ago; the two Wolves were handled by Jake. The Rhinoceros was taken down by Marco, Tobias and Cassie.

By this time more warriors had arrived. A Lion, a Cougar, a Jaguar, another Polar bear and a Cape Buffalo. Toby Hamee and War-Prince Alloran were not far behind. The most surprising was a human armed with Swords and Dracons.

"Tell me Jake, I know of most of you warriors with Aximili's help, but I am not sure who the three big cats are over there are and who the human is. Also who the Polar bear and the Buffalo are. "

**The Lion is James, the Jaguar is Erica, the Cougar is Craig and the Human is Menderash. The Polar bear and the Buffalo are military operatives Andrew Santorelli and Jeanne Gerard.**

I understood as soon as he had started explaining. "Thank you, for telling me."

**I did it for Ax, not you.**

"How sweet." That's what started the dreaded fight.

One by one they attacked. First the Polar bear ran, blindly swiping the air. I dodged out of the way and made a deep clean cut across his chest, he was down.

The buffalo was next as she tried to impale on her horns I sliced her round her midriff. All three big cats came for me but I had planned this before and I performed the Ahanjala the only move where I could successfully injure all three of them without getting rip to shreds.

It involves me sliding to the left spinning around daintily and let my blade slice through all of them, deeply.

Only the people I knew well were left. All of them reluctant to attack me.

**I am sorry Aximili-Eggsarouth-Isthill.** War prince Alloran galloped towards me, tail blade twitching as much as mine.

Then we fought, for a while it felt like a friendly match. I had always dreamed of training with War Prince Alloran, like my brother Elfangor had done but never like this trapped in my own body never to be the same. He was extremely hard to fight due to his incredible skill; I was barely surviving the match.

"I am tired of fighting you. We are equally matched and this fight will most likely never end. I have an idea of what to do with you." The One was clearly lying.

At that moment the Collosseum was surrounded with luminescent green light like it had once before when I was trapped as a part of The One. I felt my body released from the grasps of The One.

I fell forward face in the dirt. As I got up I saw War Prince Alloran looking just like he did when he was once called Visser One.

The mouth appeared on his face slowly, sharp teeth sprouting out from the black gums.

He galloped towards the ship, no one daring to stop him out of shock. Except the newly remorphed Polar bear running straight at him. In one swift movement War Prince Alloran cut his tail-blade vertically through the Polar bear's body.

The Polar bear was dead before it fell in its own pool of blood.

"That's much better." The doors closed and the ship took off, to come back the day the Andalites were defeated.

I turned around to see humans, Hork-Bajir and morphed animals, wearing the same face of hopelessness. They all knew one way or another we were doomed.


	18. The Pool

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 17: Marco**

We were a defeated bunch of Animorphs. The surroundings were so tense that every one of us was in silence waiting for someone to break the perfect balance of serenity.

We all demorphed in silence. When Jake was done demorphing, he walked over to Santorelli's morphed body. He closed Santorelli's eyes and then walked up to Ax.

"It's good to have you back, Ax." Ax nodded his head. We all walked back to the ship and climbed in. No one said anything to Ax, no "Hi", no "How you been?"

Jake turned around and starting handing out orders.

"Rachel, I want you to teach the Auxiliary Animorphs how to kill a Kelbrid. Cassie I want you to tell them what abilities and weaknesses the Kelbrids have. Toby I want you to teach Tobias everything you know about Hork-Bajir combat. Ax I need you to tell me everything you know about The One and his plans. What he made you do…"

**Prince Jake, I would prefer not to tell you what he made me do.** Jake looked at him angrily but then he sort of understood that what Ax had been through was not easy.

I thought of cheering up Ax seeing what he had been through. "So that jerk-off The One wasn't that tough we could've taken him." He smiled, mouth less.

**Hello Marco, I missed you greatly.** I was proud of him, he was stuck with This One in his head and yet here he was chilling with us like it was just another day in the life of the Animorphs.

We arrived home and called it a night, Jeanne was probably most affected by Santorelli's death, and she was crying all the way home.

Either her or Jake. He was quiet the whole time we were travelling.

Jeanne went home. Cassie, Jake and Toby went to Yellowstone. Craig and Erica went back to their house.

The rest of them spent the night at my house seeing as they lived farther away. Eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, a pool and a gym. My personal theatre was still yet to be made.

Each person got their own room, I guess Rachel and Tobias would have shared but they weren't on that good terms.

Everyone went to their own rooms and slept or just lied down and thought about what had happened tonight.

I couldn't get to sleep so I changed into swimming trunks and hit the Jacuzzi.

I was there for an hour or two when I noticed Rachel walk out.

"Isn't it your bedtime, Barbie?" She turned around in alarm, but as soon as she saw me she relaxed.

"Oh that's so cute Marco. I could morph grizzly and just eat you up." I grinned like a drunken frat boy.

"How come you're out here?" She walked up to the diving board and stepped on to it.

"Just trying getting my mind off what happened tonight." I stopped smiling.

"Trust me, Rachel. You're not the first. I've been in this pool so many times I'm sick of it. But I just want to feel normal for a while."


	19. The Thoughts

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 18: Tobias**

I went to Ax's room, to see if he was still awake. His guest room was empty. But I could hear noise outside, like galloping.

I walked out in to Marco's huge front garden. There he was galloping across the grass like a spell had been lifted off him. I understood why he did it. Andalites are very claustrophobic and Ax was literally trapped in a ship for a few years while being trapped in his own body.

I flew over him. **You're up late, Ax-man.** He caught a glance of me with his stalk eyes.

**I could ask you the same thing Tobias.** I would have smiled but all Ax got from me was the never ending serious hawk gaze.

**You feel alright?** I was worried about how much The One had damaged his brain. How much had been affected by this whole ordeal.

**I am fine; I just want to feel free. Free from war.**

Ax did the ever-classic Andalite smile, one that is done without using a mouth.

**I'll leave you to your thoughts; feel free Ax-man because you are.**

HELP!!

It was Rachel's voice, I swooped over the house and to the pool to see what had happened while Ax tried to follow going through the house.

Rachel was sitting their, jeans rolled up to her knees and her legs in the water with Marco sitting in front of her in the pool.

They were laughing. After what had happened tonight they were sitting their laughing.

I landed next to them and began to morph human. Rachel got up as soon as she saw my body changing. "Tobias!"

Marco stood up in the pool looking at me then Rachel. "Are you okay Rachel I heard you call for help?"

She looked embarrassed. "I was just fooling around with Marco; he can be funny on rare occasions."

"Fooling around with Marco." I repeated, emphasis on the 'with'. "You wanna join us?"

"No thanks, Marco." I said quite too bitterly. I walked away but Rachel didn't leave it at that.

"What's wrong with you? Why make such a big deal out of this?" Loud enough for a curious Marco to hear?

"Forget about it."

I demorphed back to hawk. I need some time to myself. I'll be back by sunrise.

The reason I left was because I hadn't eaten anything in a whole day so I was quite hungry. It wasn't like one of those dramatic goodbyes or break-ups it was just me going to get something to eat, but most likely my departure was going to damage my relationship with Rachel.

Plus I like to hunt my food instead of raiding Marco's 10ft fridge, especially with this anger inside me.

I flew here and there throughout the city, even though it was dark, even though I couldn't see I still flew as far away from all of this Animorphs stuff.

I perched myself on a huge skyscraper and watched the sun appear out of the seemingly dark sky. A new day had begun another chance at whatever I may try to achieve.

Wherever I would fly, I would still think about everything that happened this night and the many times I had screwed up in the past few years. That was me, good old Tobias.


	20. The Fight

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 19: Jake**

We were going to the Andalite homeworld to stop him. Someway, Somehow.

Me, Toby and Cassie came back to her house. Toby went off to her people. Like me Toby was made a Leader. She was made leader because of her intelligence, because she was a Seer.

But why was I the leader of the Animorphs, because Tobias said it to me one day. Now he doesn't even trust me with the lives of my own cousin and the others.

What use was I to the Animorphs? A question that haunted me every night.

I sat up and looked to my left. I know it sounds cheesy but there she was like an angel. She was beautiful. But did I deserve to be with Cassie, or would the same fate be bestowed upon me? Having to live with the thought that Cassie is dead and then she appears to me after four years of suffering and loneliness.

I drifted off to sleep. I was just too tired.

It was Tobias walking up to me in human form, cuts all over his body.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Jake. You're trying your best to do what you can to fix things, but you're a dead man walking."

He demorphed to Hawk and then to Hork-Bajir. Then with his massive claw hands he pointed to my left, there lay Cassie on her bed in a pool of blood.

"NOOOOOO!! HOW COULD YOU?" I went to grab him in his huge Hork-Bajir body, but what was the point. It wouldn't have even given him a scratch.

He lifted me up by my neck.

"Any last words Jake?" And then with a single swipe of his wrist blade, I was dead.

"Jake, Jake are you okay?" Cassie sitting over me gently tapping my face.

I sat up and held her in my arms. She understood after a minute or two. That's what I loved about Cassie, without even saying anything she understood perfectly about everything I feared, everything I cared about, how I wanted to end this, she even knew Tobias would most likely never forgive me before I did.

I told her to get some sleep and then I morphed to peregrine falcon and swooped out of the window.

I flew around here and there. Thinking with my overly human brain and letting the falcon brain guide me through the skies.

It was near sunrise when I flew over the city. I saw a Red-tailed Hawk perched on a huge building in the distance.

I knew it was Tobias because…**It helps doesn't it. At least we agree on one thing.**

I flew on while he sat there watching the sunrise one last time, before we all supposedly marched to our eventual deaths.

It was true; we stood no chance against a whole army of Kelbrids, even with the help of all the Andalites.

I flew to the ship that I thought would suit this crazed mission best. When I found it I named it One Man Army. After all, I now planned to go by myself to help the Andalites.

That's when the Red-tailed Hawk came swooping down and morphed to human.

"Jake, you're not going by yourself. We're all gonna leave together." That's what I would've said at one time but not anymore.

He had some how of the same plan as me, but this seemed much less painful. "Don't try and stop me, Tobias." I turned around and walked into the ship. That's when he grabbed my right arm.

I turned around and…

SMAAACK!!

I was down on the floor of the ship. "I'll do everything in my power to stop you, even if that means knocking you unconscious. He was about to morph Hork-Bajir. I spat some blood on the floor.

"No Tobias, don't hide behind your morph. Try and stop me the old-fashioned way." I ran up to him, grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall then punched him. I heard his nose break. Good.

He punched me in the stomach and winded me. I fell to the floor, he bent down to punch me again but I put my knee into his chest and winded him just the same.

We both got up looking at each other not moving a muscle. "You've changed Tobias; you're no longer that kid I saved from a swirly eight years ago. You're stronger."


	21. The Realization

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 20: Cassie**

Jake thought I was asleep but I wasn't. It was as if he was projecting his thoughts for me to hear. I knew exactly what he was going through. And now was not a time for him to be alone or he'd be the next Tobias: trapped in his thoughts, eternally alone, I hated to think it but it was true and I didn't want Jake to turn into him.

He flew out the window in his falcon morph and I followed him, I wasn't as fast as him because I was in my owl morph but at least he couldn't hear me, Owls wings are specially designed so that you don't hear them coming.

He flew around the woods for a while then moved on to the city. The sun was about to rise.

There was no use to be in my owl morph anymore and I needed to demorph so I landed on a skyscraper in front of the sunrise and demorphed.

I took to the air again, this time as an osprey. I flew around looking for Jake, I had lost him.

I thought of all the things he might try to do in this heightened state. Then it hit me.

His biggest worry was to be the cause of someone's death so the noble and stupid thing to do would be go all by himself and not risk anyone's life in the process.

I swooped down and headed for the place where Menderash scored spaceships.

I demorphed in some bushes nearby when I saw Tobias and Jake talking to each other on the ramp of this small spaceship. And that's when it happened.

Tobias grabbed Jake's arm swung him around and punched him square him in the face. I jumped out of the bush and ran straight for the spaceship not knowing what to do when I got there. It was at least 100 ft away but I still ran.

By the time I got their Tobias tackled Jake to the floor and had him on the floor but Jake was quicker he shoved his knee into Tobias's groin. Tobias went down and Jake stood over him, fist out ready to smash his face.

"Stop!" They both looked at me confused and surprised at the same time. I walked over to them and they instantly separated. Tobias's nose was bleeding and Jake's mouth was swollen purple.

"Demorph Tobias, Jake do the same but remorph to falcon." They stared at me.

"NOW!!" They listened this time. I was tired of this on-going fight between Tobias and Jake.

I morphed back to Osprey. "Follow me, were going to Marco's mansion." Once we arrived there we demorphed in the huge front garden.

I turned around to speak to both of them. "I understand why you both are doing this and that me saying anything isn't going to change the way you feel about each other but I need you two to get along while on missions because while I'm still alive I don't want you both running around punching the crap out of each other, you got me."

They understood perfectly but they didn't say anything. Boys are weird at least in the friendship way, you either like the other guy or you don't.

"And by the way, if you do behave like this again I'm gonna morph Wolf and rip out your throats. Both of you are wrong, not just one."

I am not much of a threat-maker but I think that done the trick. Not that I liked making threats but desperate times call for desperate measures


	22. The Friendship

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 21: Rachel**

I didn't sleep since Tobias left. He left a question in my mind: What had happened to him since I had been gone. Just how badly had he been affected.

I wanted the answer, I needed the answer. After several hours of lying in bed, I got up to see the sunrise out the window. It was perfect, but without Tobias it seemed empty.

I just stared at the sun for an hour. That's when the doorbell rang. Everyone else was asleep so I went to answer the door. When I opened the door there stood Cassie, Jake and Tobias in their morphing suits looking just as pissed off as each other.

"What's going on?" I looked at Tobias but he turned away. "Jake and Tobias were fighting over by the spaceship ground. With their fists." I knew they were not on the best of terms. But this was something I couldn't believe. "Jake had a swollen mouth and Tobias got a busted nose."

Cassie walked off in to the mansion; Jake went to go after her. Most likely to rekindle their on-going relationship. I didn't stop him because I wanted the same thing with Tobias.

"Tobias what is wrong with you, fighting Jake?" He looked at me with his fierce hawk gaze, but he was in human morph.

He then burst into speech. "The idiot was about to go to the Andalite homeworld by himself. I stopped him by fighting because nothing else would have stopped him."

He went to walk away but I stopped him. "Listen closely Tobias, I was wrong first and now you're wrong because fighting with Jake isn't going to help any of us."

He walked over to the massive living room and sat down. "I don't want to be mad at Jake; I'm tired of being angry at Jake. It's just a deep, dark, desire to be mad at him that gets me all the time."

I knelt down in front of him. "You need to listen your heart not your head. Your mind has been messed with too many times."

I helped him up and we held on to each other. His fingers running gently through my hair.

I heard a fake coughing noise and turned around to see Jake standing there. I moved out of the way. Jake walked up to Tobias.

"I never wanted to send Rachel to the Blade ship. I was desperate and scared and confused. I'm…"

"Save it Jake, I don't deserve it." He held out his hand. Jake smiled something I hadn't seen him do in a long time. They shook hands.

I smiled and squeezed them both tightly. Over my shoulder Ax, Cassie, Marco and the rest of the guys stood their looking upon us smiling.

They walked up to us. "Aww, look at the happy family I think I'm gonna cry like Rachel's about to." Marco looked pleased with his pathetic attempt at a joke until I steeped in.

"Yeah because I'm gonna kick your butt!" Everyone laughed. Marco put his hands above his head and bowed down.

It was good to have everything back to normal. Jake announced to us that we had to go to a world wide conference regarding our mission. All the original Animorphs had to be there. But the Auxiliary and New Animorphs had agreed to come along.

We were required to wear something formal. So all of us wore suits, even Cassie who made me wear one too. But we wore women's suits as in a shirt, a blazer jacket and a long skirt. All the boys came up to me to get their ties made up. First Marco. Next was Jake. Then Tobias. Then James and Menderash. They seemed nice.

James I knew from back in the Animorphs days, he was a good leader and It was hard to believe that Menderash was an Andalite nothlit, because he didn't seem to act unusual like Ax would.

Finally Ax came to me but he was not wearing a suit he was in his natural Andalite form. "I did not get a chance to say hello or hi, Rachel. You look very nice by human standards." I smiled and gave him a hug, I felt sorry for him being trapped with The One and all. But he was with us now.

He was safe.


	23. The Conference

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 22: Ax**

I was to accompany my human friends to the conference. I went in my natural state. Now that the world knew that there were other sentient species among them they would most likely be intrigued rather than frightened.

Once we arrived there we found a lot of press or what my human friend Marco would call "Paparazzi".

Their was a camera situated in the middle of the room and right in front of it was a medium sized pedestal. The President of the United States walked in to the room and shook hands with all of us. We Animorphs stood behind him and the pedestal. He then introduced Jake who explained the mission.

Then he passed it on to me. I had not prepared anything to say so I began to explain about where we were going.

I walked up to the pedestal and stared at the video camera in front of me.

**Good afternoon, citizens of Earth. I am Aximili-Eggsarouth-Isthill. I come from the Andalite homeworld. I crashed down on Earth 8 years ago. I was rescued by the then newly formed Animorphs. They took care of me and in return I joined their team to fight against the Yeerks. The former Visser Three leader of the invasion had eaten my brother and my friends were there to witness it.**

I looked around to Cassie crying silently, most likely remembering my brother.

**In my culture, it was now my burden of avenging my brother's death. For about three years, we Animorphs fought the Yeerks and put them off slightly each time. We made it out alive each time. Until our final fight. By which time we had many allies. We lost Rachel. She was killed by the Yeerks. After this time the rest of the Animorphs had gone their separate ways. She was brought back last year by The Ellimist who is like God to humans.**

Tobias was leaving, most likely needing to demorph and remorph.

**I became a Prince which is equivalent to a major here. I went on an investigative search with a crew of eight. We found the Blade Ship that Rachel died on. So we went to investigate the spacecraft when we were attacked and captured.**

**There was only Andalite who made it home. The Andalite named Menderash came to inform Prince Jake about what had happened. Then Prince Jake, Menderash and some of the remaining Animorphs boarded a spacecraft and came after me. After nearly a year in space they found me in control of a being called The One. Since then they escaped and The One has begun a war with us. The One left my body and took over Alloran-Semitur-Corass. He has assisted the help of the alien species named Kelbrids. Right now as we speak the Kelbrids are raiding my homeworld and starting a war against the Andalites. Now we are about to go and defeat them once and for all.**

I had finished talking and passed on the rest of the conference to the President. After the conference was done we all were hungry so we went to the nearest McDonald's.

We all sat down in a big stall; Prince Jake smiling lightly, Cassie holding his hand under the table, Rachel laughing, Tobias with his eyes admiring her and Marco doing impersonations of someone called Adam Sandler.

And among them, me for the first time noticing how lucky I was to have friends like them.

Our food had arrived and with mine was a miniature human made of plastic and rubber.

"What is this?" I said holding it up with strong human hands. Marco started giggling.

"Only the coolest toy ever, Ax. He's called Iceman and he's part of the X-Men."

"I see Prince Jake. Thank you for informing me."

"Ax?"

"Yes, Prince Jake."

"Don't call me Prince Jake."

"Yes, Prince Jake."

I had known for many years now this to be a recurring joke between Prince Jake and me.

I was glad that Prince Jake and I could still joke among the others when times like these came along.


	24. The Start

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 23: Marco**

This was it. We were about to end this war. No more worrying after all of this was done. Me, Jake, Cassie, Ax and Rachel met up with the rest of the team by the spaceship we were gonna travel in.

The only one of us who wasn't there was Jeanne. Come to think of it we hadn't seen her since the Santorelli incident. "Do we wait for Jeanne?" I asked Jake. He looked around and shrugged.

"Do you think she'll show, Marco?" I shrugged in reply. No one knew her motives anymore.

At that exact moment, the Green Lamborghini I saw a year ago showed up speeding down the landing strip.

The car stopped inappropriately close to me. Jeanne walked out of the car wearing this extremely tight black combat suit. Everyone was staring at her.

She was smart enough to not flirt with Tobias, Jake or Craig because they were taken but she was being especially inviting with her eyes towards James, and I think James would be feeling her drift pretty soon.

But still, while she walked past me I felt the need to say "No Jeanne, I'm taken."

"Same old Marco, with his quips and what not." She walked up to Jake who looked awfully surprised. "Jake." I noticed her use his name, not Captain as usual.

"I would like to join the fight. For Santorelli." Jake did his 'I get you' look.

"Yeah, I would be upset if you didn't accompany us." As she walked past James, he fluttered his eyes, his whole body kind of fluttered.

That was what is known as the effect of the perfume walk. Or maybe he got something in his eyes.

We all boarded the spaceship. Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Ax, Tobias, Craig, Erica, James, Toby, Menderash and Jeanne. And me.

All ready to fly away to our apparent deaths.

"Jake, what do we call the ship?"

"Good Question Menderash. Any ideas?" He looked around hoping that one of us had at least one suggestion. "Jake. Why don't we call it The Animorphobile?"

"Any other suggestions, because that was totally lame." Jake was finally getting the whole joke scenario between me and him.

"No, seriously. I mean I came up with the Animorphs and look at how well that worked."

I raised my eyebrows up and down edging Jake on to take my idea. "Okay, but if the Kelbrids laugh at it I'll give you them as a hostage."

Everyone laughed.

Except for Jeanne who was more interested in James. Rachel noticed. "What's up with you and James?"

"Well I guess I need some romance in my life and rather James than Marco."

"They always gotta bring me into their personal lives."


	25. The Ambush

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 24: Tobias**

The ship was enormous. It was as big as a Blade ship. So we all had a lot of time to roam the ship. In all there were 6 cabins, but we all fitted in fine.

That meant there were two to a cabin. And it worked out like this: Jake and Cassie, Me and Rachel, Marco and Ax, James and Menderash, Jeanne and Toby.

For most of the time we trained intensely, anything to make us better. There was huge training area where we could work on everything.

On the meanwhile, Jeanne and James really liked each other. They couldn't take their eyes off each other.

I was walking down to the kitchen one day, about a year later. When I got their Cassie was the only one in the kitchen.

She looked up and smiled. "Hey Tobias."

"Hey Cassie, what are you making?"

"Dinner."

This time we had an overly stocked kitchen. More than enough food at least for the next year. "Nice."

"Cassie, I need to tell you something."

She looked up. "Go for it."

"Whenever I'm with Rachel it feels like a dream, like it's not real. I mean she was dead for four years and we bared the pain. And then she appeared out of nowhere."

Cassie nodded to show she was following.

"She just seems too good to be true. It's bothering me because I feel like I'll lose Rachel to this stupid war."

"What you need to think about is the fact that Rachel's been alive now for almost two years and if that doesn't prove she's real than what does Tobias?"

This time I nodded to show that I understood. "Do you ever think about the day we met Elfangor?"

"Every single day, every single night and it never leaves my mind. It's the reason we're in this war and it's the reason we have something to believe in."

BOOOM!!

Me and Cassie were thrown to the left side of the kitchen. She slid across the floor and I was rolling across the counter like mad to land on the floor next to her.

Rachel came running into view, a deep cut in her stomach. She fell over because the ship was spinning uncontrollably. I ran to Rachel who was on the floor, blood leaving her body.

"RACHEL! MORPH!"

That's when her shape was changing. I lifted up her shirt to see if the cut was disappearing, and thank god it was or she'd be dead for a second time.

I demorphed to Hawk to see a wolf growling beside me and a fully formed grizzly bear ready for action. All our clothing in pieces on the floor.

We ran/flew up to the main room where a fight was about to start. Fifteen Kelbrids were surrounding the ship outside. A Tiger, Jaguar, Cougar, Lion, an Andalite and a Gorilla stood waiting. Menderash was unarmed so Toby stood right next to him to make sure no one got within inches of him when everything went down.

**The cavalry's here Jake, no worries.**

**Hey these fifteen Kelbrids are my worry, Tobias.** That's when they attacked and all Hell broke loose.


	26. The Lie

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 25: Jake**

Menderash explained to me earlier that the ship had an air lock on it meaning that as soon as the second explosion blew open a hole in the ship the Kelbrids poured in to the ship and then the airlock repair machine went forward to fix the ship. It looked a lot like R2D2.

All around me the Kelbrids went for separate targets. Four of them went for Rachel and slashed at her endlessly with their sharp shell blades. She was losing blood fast.

Three of them were on Craig and Erica, but they were doing good having already taken down one. Two of them were on Ax but he dispatched them quickly with his blade then a third flew up to him.

It knew how Ax fought so it was ready for his tail-blade stopping each one of his strikes with its shell like armour. After a few more strikes Ax figured out his tactic. So instead of slashing the Kelbrids armour he steps back and strikes it with the flat of his tail-blade.

His shell broke instantly. Pieces shatter all across the floor of the ship. R2D2 had fixed the airlock and the ship stopped shaking like crazy giving us a bit more leverage.

Seven Kelbrids were left. They all dropped down to the floor. They stared at us and we stared at them. Accessing the situation, which one of us has the chance of winning.

Rachel was out of the fight temporarily, she had been attacked too many times by the four Kelbrids whom she eventually took down. She demorphed and was ready to morph again.

"Foolish humans, we may be outnumbered 7 to 12 but even if we die you are entering our solar system and The Glorious, The Masterful One will not be far behind. Right now as we speak, he is flying over and is approximately 5 minutes away, he hasn't got far." The surprising thing about the Kelbrids was that they spoke fluent English in normal English accents. No weird rasping like the Taxxons.

I walked up to the front of my many morphed friends. **We were never scared of the Yeerks and we're definitely not scared of you.**

It was a lie. We were plenty scared of the Yeerks. I attacked the one who done all the talking.

He shielded himself all at once, my claws scraped the shield but I spun and dropped down to the floor.

I was off guard when he struck with his shell cutting one my ears straight off but the tiger inside me didn't care it just wanted to take down this alien in front of it.

The Kelbrid took to the air but from behind it a big brown Grizzly bear grabbed its shells and pulled them off leaving me to pounce on him while he wasn't looking.

As soon as we were done dealing with the Kelbrid. The other Animorphs were finished with the rest of them.

I turned around to see them all demorphing and one by one acquiring the Kelbrids. "Jake, Rachel come acquire the Kelbrid it may come in useful."

"Who's idea was it to acquire it. I didn't even think of that." Cassie answered. "It was Craig's idea."

I looked over at Craig. "Good work." That's when Erica interrupted walking up to Craig and saying "Oh please, It was my idea but I never thought my husband would steal it."

She looked at Craig, her wild red hair spinning. Her body flickered with some sort of glow for a few seconds then disappeared. "No more family secrets."

Secret. Was that flickering around Erica's body a secret?

Everyone laughed. "I thought of it after Toby told me that you morphed the Hork-Bajir to infiltrate the Yeerk lair to get Marco's mom."

I thought of what the Kelbrid who said The One was coming to join us any minute.

"Guys if and when The One comes we surrender. No point in dying in this ship we stay to fight another day or a few more hours. And plus we check our surroundings to see if we can escape."

I expected outburst, but everyone nodded or agreed with a "Yes." They were taking me seriously, something that always just seemed too happened.

What would happen now?

Was this then end of the road for the Animorphs?


	27. The Controller

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 26: Cassie**

They arrived four minutes later. They towed in our ship to their loading port and that's where two dozen Kelbrids appeared to accompany us to The One's main room in his humungous spaceship. I'm talking 6 times as big as our ship and I thought our ship was big.

There were two Kelbrids accompanying both of us, just in case we changed our minds about surrendering.

"Hey so I wanted to ask? How do you tell the difference between a male Kelbrid and a female?" Marco stared at the two Kelbrids walking along him waiting for a reply to his question.

"We have no females. The males mate with each other. "So that would make you all gay, you know like homos."

SMAAACK!!

The Kelbrid on the right of Marco used his shell to hit him in his chest. He was right in front of me and he fell on the floor coughing heavily. All the others had turned around and Jake tried to go help him but his Kelbrids held him back.

Everyone around Animorphs and Kelbrids were staring at Marco and what he would do next. He stood up and spat blood in the face of the Kelbrid that hit him.

"Mine's Red, what colors yours."

The Kelbrid grabbed him and veered him faster into room that The One waited in. We entered the room to see a bunch of controls surrounding the area in a semi-circle.

"Welcome foolish humans, Andalites and Hork-Bajir." Tobias was perched on Rachel's shoulder looking around at the huge control room.

Possibly figuring a way out.

"I thought you all had enough brains not to follow me. But your kind never learns do they."

Jake looked at him as if he was a boring maths teacher droning on about Surds ands Quaratic Formulas. Something like we did when we were in high school.

"I want you all to know, that if you keep on pestering me like this it won't be too good for our friendship."

Friendship, yeah right.

He started laughing like this deranged lunatic but what could I say, he was. He looked even scarier then Visser Three when he was in control of War Prince Alloran.

"Get them on their knees." He shouted to his alien henchman.

A big Kelbrid standing next to me grabbed my shoulder and pushed me down. It wasn't very forceful seeing as the Kelbrids had very floppy, clumsy arms.

"No I'm not bowing down to you." Rachel wasn't exactly happy with this situation. The Kelbrid behind her and smacked his shell case into her back forcing her to fall on her knees."

Before this happened Tobias flapped off her shoulder, but due to the lack of air he fell. "Don't let any of them morph, if they do kill them. And keep an eye on the bird."

He looked toward to Jake. "I have someone to meet you, Jake." One of the highest ranking controllers on Earth walked past us and towards his brother.

Tom Berenson.


	28. The Chee

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 27: Rachel**

I was on the floor, blood trickling out of my nose while I stared at someone that should have been dead. Someone I killed myself.

"Jake, bro I missed you so much. The One said he would bring me to life and you and I can be free."

Jake was staring at Tom as if he was his answer to everything. But Tom was staring at me as if horrified with what I done to end the war. Jake tried to stand up but the Kelbrids stopped him. "See Jake, you can go home with your brother if you leave the Andalite homeworld and never come back."

"No. Jake don't do it. Don't listen to him." I wanted to say more but a Kelbrid stood in front of me and slapped me with his floppy arm. It stung though especially as I was already hurt.

Cassie screamed them to stop slapping me but they wouldn't stop. "C'mon Jake, I'll wait for you out here." Jake seemed entranced by Tom's presence.

The Kelbrids let Jake go and he walked past me and the rest of the guys. "You gonna leave us here Jake." It was Cassie. My best friend. The voice of reason.

Jake turned around looking sad, but with a look of 'I just don't care'. "Yes. Yes, I am." He walked away but while no one expected he reached behind Menderash's back and pulled out a Dracon.

He pushed the button and aimed at the Kelbrids. Out of the twenty four Kelbrids in the room only four stayed on the ground. The rest rose into the air and went for Jake. This helped him, and soon all the Kelbrids in the air were taken down.

By this time we all morphed, I would have gone with my elephant morph but I wanted a battle morph as soon as possible and that particular morph would have taken long. **Rachel we're crash landing but I think Menderash has got it in control.**

Tobias while filling me in about the situation that I could see quite easily took out the eyes of a unsuspecting Kelbrid. A pretty dumb Kelbrid flew straight at me, but I smacked it straight in the face. It was down.

Out of all those Kelbrids only two remained. Ax was having a serious tail blade battle with The One, tail-blades flashing and all. If only I had a tail-blade they are so cool. Cassie jumped one of the Kelbrids and Toby sliced up the other one. Now it was only The One left, still battling with Ax.

Me and Craig moved forward ready to attack but Ax said something that made us all wanna not come closer.

**No don't come closer, our tail-blades might cut you and then he could take advantage.**

We all stood their in our various morphs staring at the fight in front of us. Menderash was trying to control the ship but it wasn't working.

"Guys we are about to crash in about 10 seconds."

The door opened behind us and in came Tom. The rest of the guys turned around to see who came. I walked up to him and was about to grab him to see what the hell was going on, but the hologram changed to a much bigger older Erek King.

"Hi Rachel. You're not gonna try and pick me up because I do weigh about two hundred and fifty five pounds."

BOOOM!!


	29. The Homeworld

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 28: Ax**

The ship had not been destroyed but was badly damaged. It was no longer flyable. I opened my stalk eyes to find the rest of the Animorphs on the floor just as dazed as me.

"Well at least we're alive." A Kafit bird swooped past just above Erica's head. The One fleeing from us. Their would be time for him later.

Rachel walked to the exit of the ship and the others followed behind her.

It took us a few minutes to get their. It was quite what humans would call awkward seeing as the last time we saw Erek the Chee was when Prince Jake had made him involuntarily give us the pass codes to the Yeerk spaceships.

The last thing Erek said was to any of us. "Take care of Jake; he's going to need you."

Prince Jake was walking way ahead next to Rachel so he didn't have to face Erek. But I was walking next to him.

**Hello, Erek long time no see.** He was wearing a sad smile. That's when I realized something. Erek had appeared on a spaceship light years away from his original destination on planet Earth.

I stopped walking and the others turned around all standing in their new morphing suits. I directed my thought speak to everyone. **Erek, how did you come to be on this spaceship?** He looked at me but took a few seconds before he started talking.

"I was living peacefully trying to forget my disappointment in Jake's actions. When an Andalite comes to my house and talks to me. He tells me that he knows who I am, what I am capable of, and what I can't do. He told me that I should come with him as part of his glorious plan or he would destroy the other Chee. So I went with him."

Everyone around was staring at Erek probably feeling very selfish or pitiful towards Erek. But he had been alive for thousands of years. Being alive that long gives you both great knowledge and great wisdom.

"I don't need your pity." Cassie walked up to him and grabbed his hand. "But you need us, because together we're gonna end this war. I too am tired of this war."

It was the first time we all saw Erek smile since the Yeerk war.

We all made our way out to the exit but when we opened the door we noticed the spaceship we were currently in was suspended on a giant Hablu tree. Hablu was sort of similar to bamboo, very springy, hard to break.

"Guys go bird morphs. Jeanne use your black-browed albatross. Craig, Erica do you have any bird morphs?"

They smiled and looked at each other. Erica answered. "I have a Merlin and Craig has a Black-winged Kite."

"Great now we're talking and James you can use your pigeon." Everyone looked at Toby, Menderash and Erek.

"Jake how are they going to get down."

He thought for a while. "I will climb down the tree." Marco snapped his fingers. "Yeah that's what I was gonna say but Toby Toaster here said it all."

Erek spoke up. "I can carry…" He looked at Menderash not knowing his name.

"Menderash. I am an Andalite nothlit."

We all morphed our various bird morphs while it took Toby like forty seconds to climb down a eighty foot Hablu tree. Erek grabbed Menderash in his arms and jumped down the whole eighty feet without even laying a scratch on himself or Menderash.

All the people in morph flew down and demorphed to meet up with Menderash, Erek and Toby.

I was finally home. I felt happy, so would Menderash but it was not the same we were here to fight this evil called The One, not enjoy ourselves.

Prince Jake pushed the bushes out of the way and all of us walked through to stare at the sight of one of our homeworld's Red suns. It was beautiful but not what we were here for.


	30. The Arrow

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 29: Marco**

We were walking through an empty meadow everyone talking to each other except for Jake who was walking straight ahead. Poor guy, he probably needed a bit of his best bud, Marco the Mighty.

"A lot of haters on you. First Tobias, now Erek." He looked at me while walking then looked away. "He's right to Marco. I killed seventeen thousand Yeerks. They were harmless. It makes me just as bad as Visser Three."

If I was a good friend I would have done something to console him but I did what I knew would help someone like Jake.

"Don't break my heart, My Achey Jakey heart." He started laughing lightly. Like I had predicted we were a group that were cheered up by my incomparable charm.

Everyone was conversing in seemingly normal conversation to lighten up the tense atmosphere. On a planet where I would never feel normal.

The surroundings were so vivid in color it made my eyes hurt but I was still amazed at the contrast and scenery.

I'm not one of those scenic tourist types who go all gaga over how the sun setting can be so magical but still, this was something.

I turned around to see Rachel walking with Tobias holding hands and looking down at the purple grass as they walked.

I don't say this much but I was happy for them. Uh-oh I'm turning to a mixture of Cassie's kindness and Tobias's lonely thoughts. I should make a joke before they think I'm some alien impostor.

**Prince Jake!**

FLIT!!

The arrow went straight through Tobias's shoulder. He dropped to the floor instantaneously.

"TOBIAS!" Rachel fell on the floor crying heavily, and looking to see if he was alive.

A grand total of four Kelbrids were flying towards us in the clear red sky. Two of which were holding bows and arrows.

"Animorphs no morphing, we won't have enough time before they shoot arrows through us." Most of us ran to the trees for cover but Rachel didn't move. I ran up to her and helped her up while Jake dealt with Menderash and Erek picked up Tobias.

"What are you doing? RUN!" Menderash pulled out a Dracon and one of those samurai swords. "I'm gonna fight Prince Jake I can prove myself." Jake trusted well that moment because he ran away.

We all saw as Menderash shot the two bows and arrow slinging Kelbrids while the other two came down ready to fight. But before they could attack Menderash one was sliced in twice in to bits by Ax and the other felt a Hork-Bajir grab him and claw him bad.

"Tobias has fainted, he'll be fine but he's not demorphing so we have to clean his wound and take out the arrow."

Cassie organized all that she needed to perform this little operation.

"This is gonna hurt Tobias, might even wake him up so he can morph but it might not seeing as he's knocked out pretty bad. On the count of three I'm gonna take out this arrow."

THREE…Jake was staring at Tobias looking serious as ever.

TWO…Rachel closed her eyes looking away not being able to see Tobias in pain.

ONE...Ax looking ahead with his mouthless face not thinking a word.


	31. The Andalite

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 30: Tobias**

AHHHHHHH!!

Yeah that was me, crying out from the agonizing pain taking over me. But I couldn't move at least not majority of my body. I was paralyzed meaning I couldn't morph either.

But did the others realize this. "Why isn't he demorphing?" Rachel looked around frantically looking for an answer from anyone. While I was in hawk morph I noticed something about Craig, Erica and James.

They seemed have a glowing, flickering metallic look to them. I know weird right? But I could worry about that later.

"Maybe he's paralyzed. Theirs some white stuff on the tip of the arrow." Cassie passed the arrow to Ax.

I swear I could have kissed her then and their, though I was paralyzed and I don't know whether Jake would be too happy about it. The arrow seems to have some sticky white residue planted on the tip.

He checked the arrow further, everyone watching closely. **Prince Aximili?** Ax turned to face Menderash. I think it is the poison of the Hablu tree.

Come with me Menderash.

Five minutes later, Ax and Menderash came back from their short lived expedition. **This poison is only temporarily, Tobias will be fine in about twenty three minutes.**

"It all comes down to this Hablu tree doesn't it." Marco suggested.

Rachel ran to hug Ax. "Thanks buddy. You too Menderash, great job." Everyone relaxed quite a bit until…

**Keep your tail blade close to the floor Andalite spy and while you're at it you can tell me why you are accompanied by several humans and a hork-bajir.** We all turned around to see a lone Andalite staring at us with an Andalite shredder in his hand ready to go.

"Seelesh, is that you?" Menderash walked up to him, not caring about the weapon in his hand. Stay back. I'm warning you.

"It's me, son. Menderash-Seelesh-Kedoo. Your father."

The Andalite named Seelesh looked shocked beyond belief. **You're not my father. He was a great Andalite warrior known for his loyalty, you are just an outsider. An alien.**

Menderash looked at him.

He seemed sad but he started talking slowly. **If I am not your father then I would not know the words of you and your father's own ritual. The body that I have is dedicated to stopping the Yeerks and their tyranny against this and many others galaxies. I am honored to serve my world and would lay my life as a debt to my people. Any one threatening our world is not welcome and will be punished for their ruthless and unnecessary warlike ways. May we be blessed eternally.**

The Andalite walked up to him and put his tail-blade slowly up against Menderash's neck.

FWAAAP!!

Ax in reaction had his tail-blade against Seelesh's throat. "Prince Ax. He means me no harm he is merely completing our ritual." Ax took his tail-blade away from the Andalites throat and stepped back.

"Son I have become a nothlit to honor my people and save our world and these are my friends." The humans from the planet Earth. This is our capable leader."

He was pointing at Jake. I was happy for him to find his son and for us to gain another ally. We needed people in this war against the Kelbrids.


	32. The Infiltration

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 31: Jake**

We got a bunch of info from Seelesh who Marco had decided to call West after his second name "Westresh". So I did too. By the time we were done, Tobias's paralysis was gone as predicted and he was ready to head out.

Tobias was still very tired so Rachel helped him. She put her arms round his chest and hoisted him up from there. However strong she was she still needed help so I volunteered.

It was a long hike. West said that we would get there by morning, while it was the dead of night. We walked until our feet were tattooed with blisters. Even the beautiful scenery and the Kafit birds couldn't cheer us up.

After several hours of trekking we finally arrived at the destination. The base where The One was planning more of his attack on the Andalites world.

West explained to me the reason we didn't see any of the war is because we were in what was called 'deadland' somewhere neither the Kelbrids nor the Andalites entered to avoid being attacked.

Although we were fine. But I guess it was the dead of night when we were walking through deadland. Dawn was approaching…perfect timing.

"Battle morphs guys, we have planets to save."

Rachel seemed to agree. "Let's do it!"

The tiger erupted from inside me. I was the king of the jungle, the alpha cat and I was ready for this fight.

All around me a zoo of animals from all around the world.** I am the servant of the people.** It was Ax. Menderash and West were performing the same ritual. **I am the servant of my prince.**

When Ax was finished he and West put their tail-blades against their throats. Menderash held his sword against his.

We ran in our various forms to the metallic doors of the huge building which closely resembled the construction site all those years ago. I thought about that day every waking minute of my life.

WHAAAM!!

Kelbrids here and there doing work in the building flew over to stop us but we were more than a few tonnes of muscle ready for battle. Craig in his cougar morph jumped in to the fight, Erica right next to him, James too.

They were against incomparable odds. Thirteen Kelbrids against the three of them. "Get out of here guys we'll hold them up."

They wouldn't survive but we had a job to do and their were probably a lot of Kelbrids waiting to be attacked. Prince Jake. I will attempt to help them with the Kelbrids.

Toby, Menderash and West jumped into the fight with Ax. "Come on guys they'll handle these insects." I saw several Kelbrids trying to hurt Erek but none succeeding.

We went through the building taking out the occasional unsuspecting Kelbrid but apart from that the building was just a workplace for the Kelbrids to create weapons.

Andalite shredders to be exact. They had most likely stole this weapons factory and started making the Andalites shredders for their own use.

We arrived in front of another metallic door, this time much bigger. **Yo Jake. This door just screams 'secret lair of a evil being' this is definitely the place.**

Marco was right.** Rachel. May you do the honors? **She stood erect on her hind legs. **Gladly, Marco.**

She smashed the door open and in we went, not prepared for the horrors awaiting us.


	33. The Reason

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 32: Cassie**

We were greeted by the sound of malicious laughter. And the face we knew too well. A face of a friend and a foe.

**What's going on?** I turned around to look at my friends changing shape, becoming human, against their will. **Jake is this possibly be the anti-morphing ray.**

"No, Marco. This morphing ray actually leaves you unable to morph, in this room. You are all a part of my new torture chamber experiment."

None of us dared to touch him, his tail-blade being the reason. "You do know that there are more than six of us."

The laughter began again. Jake looked as if The One was some psycho from the mental ward. "They can be handled, easily. You see the Auxiliary Animorphs are all dead even James, Craig and Erica. They are just clones I have made using the power of my master. You should have believed the reports oftheir death instead of being stirred by their faces."

We all had the same look of shock on our faces. So that's why they looked metallic and their bodies flickered.

Alloran-Semitur-Corass smiled showing sharp teeth, something a normal Andalite shouldn't have. He galloped towards Rachel.

FWAAAP!!

Rachel was knocked unconscious. "What the…?"

FWAAAP!!

Marco fell to the floor. Tobias flapped up in the air getting ready to attack this beast.

TSEEEEW!!

He swooped down going for the Andalite stalk eyes.

FWAAAP!!

Why do you humans continue to patronize? Why play hard to get? He was slowly walking up to me. I knew why.

"NO!" Jake ran in front of me. "You'll have to kill me." The Andalite grinned.

FWAAAP!!

I was crying. I knew Jake wasn't dead but the fact that we had burst into the building thinking that if we got rid of The One we would be free of this war.

Now I was the only one left conscious staring into the face of our enemy.

"Good. Crying's good." I know people always say this but my life flashed before my eyes. All my battles, all my personal problems with the war.

"You surprise me Cassie. Fighting in a war that you are sick of." He stared at me expecting an answer, so I gave him one. I wiped my eyes.

"I fight because I have the power. Not using my power to stop this madness, this war is why I fight. I fight to stop worthless scum like you."

FWAAAP!!


	34. The Jerks

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 33: Rachel**

"Rachel, honey wake up your boyfriends over for breakfast." I opened my eyes after hearing my mother's voice.

I was in my bedroom. In my old house. "Your blueberry pancakes are getting cold." I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and then rubbed my eyes; I was younger by a few years.

I brushed my teeth while working out where I was, in what alternate reality. I went downstairs to investigate. Jordan and Sara were sitting at the table eating their breakfast. My Mom and Dad were sitting at the table eating with them. With each other, what was going on?

"Hey Babe." Marco walked in to the room much younger and much shorter than last time I saw him.

"What is this?" I said as my mom looked at me. "What's wrong honey?" I looked at all of them. "Everything is wrong. Everything."

I walked out of the house wanting to get some fresh air. **Leaving already? I just wanted to mess with reality to get you angry.**

"Well you succeeded." That's when I looked across the road and saw Tobias getting beaten up by someone who I couldn't… Jake.

I ran up to them. "JAKE!" He turned to look at me after kicking Tobias in the gut.

"Hey, Cousin. Just dealing with this punk. He was annoying my girl yesterday." Tobias was on the floor coughing.

"Your girl. Are you talking about Cassie?" He started laughing like some jock. Something my cousin would never do.

"You talking about that tree-hugger that's got crap all over her clothes. No way. She has the hots for this pile of loner garbage. My girl is Melissa Chapman."

He pointed to Tobias. "He and the tree-hugger have no friends except for each other. And now she likes him."

He bent down next to Tobias to tease him, but I pushed him out of the way. I helped Tobias up to see cuts all over his face. Most likely from the many rings on Jake's hands.

"I don't need your help." He pushed me away from himself and quickly walked away. "Why did you stop me?"

It was Jake; his face had a dumb look on it so I left him by himself. "I'll see you on Sunday. Your families having dinner at my house."

Of course my parents were still together, making our families on good terms. I sat on the sidewalk for a few minutes until I saw Cassie walking to school, books in her hands.

"Hey Cassie." She turned to look at me confused and then walked faster. I ran to catch up with her when she turned around all of a sudden.

"I couldn't do it yesterday I had to help my dad with a sick deer. Please give me one more day." Now I was the one confused.

"What are you talking about?" She looked like she was annoyed but tried to hide it from me. "The Math homework you made, I mean gave to me to do."

She looked horrified so I decided to cheer her up. "No worries, forget about it. Enjoy you're weekend."

I left her looking confused but not for long. "Thank you, Rachel!" I was glad that was one problem off her plate she was probably having a hard time at school as it is.

Marco walked out of my house. "C'mon Babe. We have school to go to unless you wanna get a joint." I was repulsed by him and his offer to take what sounded like drugs. "Yeah. Let's go to school."

I got my stuff from in side and went with to school with Marco. We were late already so we got in pretty late as I walked in I saw Jake and Melissa talking to each other smiling. Tobias and Cassie were sitting together on the other side of the school field. Cassie nursing his bruises.

He knew this got to me, seeing Tobias vulnerable again. It was emotional torture. If only he had given physical torture. I would have taken it better.


	35. The Imposters

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 34: Ax**

We were winning. Out of the many Kelbrids that attacked us most of them were dead. But they had kept on coming.

Now after 12 whole minutes of battle their were five left. They were beaten instantly. Not that the fight wasn't hard. Toby had mild cuts here and there but she would live. Menderash and Seelesh were nowhere to be seen.

I was hurt badly so I morphed human then demorphed again. One thing that surprised me was that James, Craig and Erica were unscathed. Not even one cut on them. Very strange but to be dealt with later.

**Good work friends. Toby are you well enough to continue?** Toby was standing against the wall for support but answered quickly.

"Aximili, give me a few minutes to clean my cuts." I knew she was in pain so I agreed.

**Of course. As you wish.**

The advantage of the fight was that whenever a Kelbrid would hit Erek their Shells would break leaving them vulnerable and easy to dispatch.

We stood their among the bodies of Kelbrids and the blood that accompanied them. Believe it or not, The Andalites do not like war. The only reason we have a military system and war weaponry is to defend ourselves.

There are Andalites who pride themselves over their skills and ranks in war. But if you begin to live for war then that's when it is enough. "Toby is ready, Ax."

I turned around to see Erek looking at me. Yes. Let's move forward and find Prince Jake and the others.

We ran through the building looking for them until we reached a big metal door. The metal door looked like it had been broken open and then clamped shut. Toby.

Toby walked up to the door and was about to kick it open when Craig, Erica and James stopped us.

**Ax I think we should wait until the others arrive.** I looked at James waiting for an explanation but it came from Erica.

**Ax I think he means wait for Menderash and West.** Craig began to speak. **They were separated during the fight so we should wait for them.**

They were right in thinking this but Prince Jake may be in trouble. **Prince Jake may be hurt or worse dead we have to help them.**

I signaled Toby to continue. But as I did Menderash and Seelesh came running. **What's…?**

FWAAAP!!

Seelesh's tail-blade sliced Erica's morphed Jaguar head clean off. Her body dropped to the floor. She was dead instantaneously.

Menderash was right behind him and cut Craig's morph so many times with his sword he fell to the floor bleeding to death.

**WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?** I was shocked and enraged at the same time.

James in his lion morph ran away as soon as he could. **Prince Aximili they are traitors.**

I didn't believe them. I couldn't believe them.

**You are the traitors. Killing innocent humans who have done nothing but help us.**

Menderash sighed; I could tell he was not happy when he killed Craig but then again he was now a murderer.

"When we were separated we entered a lab of some sort with chemicals, drugs and experiments of horrid proportions."

**We hacked into the computer their and found out that they were clones used to help the Animorphs reach The One so that he could kill them. Thanks to them your friends may already be dead.**

I felt quite stupid for not guessing any of this.


	36. The Ants

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 35: Marco**

The One's plan was to torture us, physical or mental didn't matter. Just torture us.

**They're behind us!** It was Rachel, yelling. I remembered this day so well, we had tried morphing ants and ended up being ripped to pieces while demorphing and fighting for our lives.

**Breaking through the side of the tunnel!** Cassie screamed. **They're everywhere!** Second time round and my reaction was exactly the same. **Help! Help!**

**Arrrrgggghhhh!**

The speed of the attack was incredible. The force of the attack was impossible to explain.

There were hundreds of them. Ahead. Behind. Flooding up from side tunnels. Bursting from the walls. **My leg! They bit off my leg!**

**Oh, oh, oh! My neck. Oh, help me!**

The first time this happened there were three of them on me trying to bite my various body parts off. However I knew where they were coming from and how to stop them. As they came I took them down. One by one.

I was on fire, but I wasn't gonna be for long. **Morph!** I yelled.** It's the only way! Morph!**

I demorphed. **Morph!** It was Jake's voice just like before, like the first time we were in this situation.** Aaaaahhhhh! No! NO!**

Then all of a sudden the screaming, the crying, the wailing stopped. They were dead. In this warped version of reality they were killed by a bunch of ants. I fell to my knees and cried, like a little girl who lost her mommy at the park.

I knew this was all a trick but screw it this was one hell of a show. I was living one of my worst nightmares and it just got worse.

"Marco Santos? What are you doing in my garden and in bike shorts." Chapman grabbed me from my shoulder and swerved me into his house. I didn't try to stop him. I didn't care. **You're not going to escape.** The One was taunting me but I was beyond caring.

We walked through his house and down to his basement. It was normal until a metal door slid open, I knew what was happening. I pushed him away from me and ran up the stairs.

"Come back you little…" He ran after me but I was younger and much faster. I got to the door, opened it and ran out. **You can run but it's inevitable?**

It was Visser Three, not The One. The initial threat, the reason this war had begun. Somehow he didn't intimidate me as much as The One did. Maybe the mouth helped.

"I'm guessing by now you know who I am." The Seven controllers standing behind him were all holding dracons. No chance to run for it.

**Yes, I do know who you are and who you are related to and who your friends are and after I have infested you they will be hunted one at a time.** It was my turn to laugh. "They're already dead. Believe it or not."

Chapman grabbed me from behind. I couldn't stop him, he was a full grown man and I was just a thirteen year old kid. That's when the Yeerk came out of a silver container held by a controller. It slid into my ear and I felt it taking over. I would soon be a controller.


	37. The Former

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 36: Tobias**

There I was perched on a tree. I felt heavier than I would in my natural hawk form. Much heavier. I took off but wait I had no wings. I was human and I was falling.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed with a human voice. There were seconds left before I would go splat on the leafy ground. I closed my eyes.

**Whoa there! Tobias you need wings to fly, you know that right?** It was a big hairy gorilla holding me in his arms. In other words, Marco.

"Thanks man. I'd be toast without you." I was shaking all over due to the near death experience and the fact that I was wearing nothing but boxers and socks in the middle of the freezing forest.

**Nice Underwear.** Marco demorphed. As he did a Grizzly bear, Siberian tiger, Wolf and an Andalite came running into view.

I covered as much of my body as I could with my small hands. I was thirteen again. Everyone demorphed while listening to Marco joke about the situation.

Hey wait till Rachel sees you, even she'll laugh at how pathetic this is. He made his eyebrows go up and down at Rachel while she finished demorphed. As soon as she was done she went over to slap Marco over the head.

The result was a girl slapping a gorilla upside the head.

**Hey what was that for?** She looked at him as if he was some sort of gross pimple. "Don't annoy Tobias he must be embarrassed enough already." Now I was really embarrassed.

**Come on Tobias. We'll help you back home.** It was Jake or as Marco would say our fearless leader. I rode home on the back of a very big tiger and it wasn't as fun as it sounds.

They dropped me at a house, wait this was where I used to live. My aunt's house. "Tobias go get changed. We need to talk to you."

I entered the house and went upstairs to get dressed. By the time I came back only Jake and Cassie remained. "Listen, Tobias. We know you became a human nothlit for Rachel but, she hasn't got time to hang out anymore so we think we should split ways because we've got a big mission coming up and we might get busier and busier after time."

I was lost for words. The One had hit me in my weakest point. He knew what hurt me the most, what I would be affected by the most. Everything I worried about had been put together to torture me and it was working.

I was out of the fight in this twisted world. And for some reason i said. "I understand guys. You should go get some rest. You've had a long day."

Cassie stepped forward. "We're not gonna get time to rest. We have a mission tonight."

They left as the sun began to set. I stayed up all night waiting for Rachel to come to me and tell me she was safe.

I woke up on the couch. The doorbell rang. I opened it to find Cassie crying silently in Jake's arms while Marco stood their looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Ax standing awkwardly in his human morph.

They called me out there into the front garden. Jake began to explain the purpose of this meeting. "Tobias. Rachel is…"

"Dead. Gone. Deceased. Put whatever you want next to it." I grabbed Jake by the collar once Marco was done talking, I knew this was coming but it still came as a shock to me. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE HER? YOU WERE IN CHARGE."

Jake had gone and gotten her killed, her being the one person I cared about in this twisted world who actually seemed normal.

Marco grabbed me and pushed me away. He was shorter than me but that did not mean he couldn't fight. "Get off me!" I went for Jake again.** Do you really want to do that?** I knew exactly who it was. The One.

WHAAAM!!

Marco's knee connected with my stomach. I went down fast. "Quit it Tobias. You're not an Animorph anymore. You'd rather live a life of peace."

Tears swept down my cheeks. I was beaten. By the very people I believed to be my friends. Is this how they would react if I choose a peaceful life as a human?

The One had succeeded in showing the worst scenario of when, if I ever went human nothlit.


	38. The Extra

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 37: Jake**

"Wake up Mr. Berenson this isn't night time." I opened my eyes and shuffled my head around to find my Science teacher standing with her arms crossed in front of me. "Sorry. Didn't get enough sleep last night."

She nodded and continued talking to the class. I was the master of lying ever since I became an Animorph. No hesitation to say "Sorry." I was just kind of shocked to wake up in a classroom 6 years younger than I am. When I was actually on an alien planet about eighty light years away from Earth."

But that was never how it ended up. I looked around the classroom. Rachel was sitting by the window on the other side of the classroom looking out the window. Marco was right at the back of the class.

As soon as I looked behind me there he was making silly faces. Yeah wherever I was it seemed pretty normal. The One said we would be his torture experiments. Was this torture?

"I want your homework in by next Monday. That includes you Miss Berenson." The school bell rang and everyone walked out the classroom. I picked up my stuff and walked up to my locker. I remember when Ax was pretending to be my cousin from out of town.

He had noticed a picture of me in Cassie's locker. She was quite embarrassed but I just smiled because I too had a picture of her in my locker. "Hey Jake, were gonna go to the Taco Bell wanna come?" It was Cassie.

"Yeah sure." She took hold of my arm and took me to the school parking lot. There stood Marco and Rachel was spread out on the hood of a Buick Convertible, soaking up the sun. I noticed that Cassie wasn't wearing the usual Wal-Mart jeans, but a skirt and not one of the long skirts, it was a short skirt.

"Wait, Cassie. Is school over?" She looked around. "No. Lighten up honey." She put her hand on my cheek and kissed me.

I know what you're thinking P.D.A is not Cassie's style. It's more like after an eye opening mission fighting that gets our emotions out of us.

She turned around and went to say 'Hi' to Rachel. I walked behind her. "Hey Cuz." Rachel said as i walked over. Wheatus-Teenage Dirtbag was playing from the convertible and the door was open.

"Hey Marco. Pass me the wrench. It's on the dashboard." I looked around to see who was talking until Tobias came out from under the car wearing one of those white sleeveless vests, and looking bigger than before. "Forget about it." He saw me and went to shake my hand before realizing it was full of dirty oil.

Five minutes later I was sitting next to Marco in the back with my arm around Cassie. Rachel and Tobias were in the front with him driving. What was going on? These guys were skipping school on purpose. Cassie was wearing skirts. Tobias was really cool and had a sweet ride. Something was very wrong. "Nice Car." I said quickly before moving on to questions.

"Hey Marco? Why is everyone acting so weird?" He looked at me as if I had said something Taboo. "Hey guys. Jake just asked me why we are acting so weird."

Everyone laughed. He turned to look at me. "You're the one acting weird. You know we always blow off last period to go get a bite at Taco Bell and you look like a nerd. Where's your gangsta threads." Marco frowned once he was done. "I don't know. I think I like the nerdy look." Cassie winked at me after she was done complimenting my 'threads'.

"Hey guys what's been going on with the fight against the Yeerks?" They all looked shocked and scared until Tobias answered. "Hey Rachel baby. Your cousin is such a geek sometimes." We stopped at McDonalds and went inside. "What would you like sir?" **Wait for it, Jake.** The One had something planned.

"What's going on?" I must have looked pretty worried.

"Can we have a happy meal, with some extra happy?" My heart started beating like an out of control metronome; Whatever Rachel said I understood perfectly. I tried to run for it but Tobias tackled me to the floor. All the customers were staring at us. "Lights out."

SMAAACK!!


	39. The Bridge

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 38: Cassie**

The Day of Judgment is said to have a red sky and the sky was filled with nothing but red. The Blade ship floated above, terrifying the people of San Francisco. That's where I was standing on the famous Golden Gate Bridge.

Cars around me stopped and out came people: curious and confused. "What is that? In the sky over there."

People were pointing at the spaceship amazed at the peculiar shape and unusual design. "It's a strange shape for a U.F.O isn't it?" I looked at the thousands of people around me. "NO! YOU HAVE TO RUN NOW. IT'S NOT SAFE."

That's when the attack begun. "Oh. That's not good." I heard someone say.

TSEEEEEEW!

People who were astonished by the rare technology above them now ran for their lives. The Dracon beams were enough to take out one person at a time. I started to run past, through and over the cars.

A Dracon beam just missed me as I was about jumped off the back of a bright yellow sports car. "CASSIE!" I slipped and fell on my back another Dracon beam barely missing me. The door opened to my right and there sat Rachel and Marco calling me into the vehicle.

"Get in. Hurry up." As I got in Rachel hugged me tight. I felt warmth go through my body, the opposite of when I saw the Blade ship. "I'm so glad you're okay." I said as I hugged Marco too.

"Where's Jake and Tobias." They turned silent not daring to release a word. "Answer me, c'mon." Marco hesitated and then spoke with a soft caring voice not very common in his personality. "They went to help the injured people."

I looked at both of them with a whole bunch of curiosity. "Why didn't you go with them?" It was Rachel's turn to speak.

"We wanted to live. To you know fight another day." I stared in disgust. "How could you? Jake is your cousin and don't you love Tobias?" I slapped her and then grabbed her by her sweater as I questioned her getting angrier and angrier each second. These were not my friends. Rachel and Marco would never leave the others behind.

"Cassie, calm down. We don't need to fight." Marco said as Rachel pushed me up against the car door as we rustled around in the cramped area. The car door flew open and down I fell and Rachel on top of me. I tried to get up but…

SMAAACK!!

Rachel punched me square in the face. I felt as if I had been hit by a brick. **How doe's that feel Cassie? Your only friend.** He was taunting me, and it was working.

"You should have calmed down when Marco asked you to."

TSEEEEEEW!

Rachel was gone, incinerated by the Dracon beams. "You alright Ca…" An Elite Hork-Bajir jumped out of nowhere, lifted Marco and put his wrist blade straight through him. Another Hork-Bajir appeared but it was familiar, it was Tobias. A Siberian tiger was not far behind. Marco had bled out and was dead by now.

Hork-Bajir against Hork-Bajir. The deadliest blade fighter would survive. Tobias seemed to be winning but then the Hork-Bajir got in close enough to grab him and lift him up on top of the another car. His elbow blade dropped like a guillotine on top of Tobias's head. Ax came galloping into view and gave the same fate to the Hork Bajir that killed Tobias but then...

TSEEEEEEW!

Jake pounced on another Hork-Bajir and ended his killing spree in a flash. Tobias was dead, Ax was dead and so were the Hork-Bajir. **Cassie. You okay?** I started to cry without realizing it. I knew what would happen next.

TSEEEEEEW!

Jake was gone and yet again I was the only Animorphs believed to be alive on a burning bridge in sight of the enemy.


	40. The Information

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 39: Rachel**

I snapped back to reality, or as real as it could get. We were all strapped to these metallic stands with our wrists and legs wrapped with metal cuffs. Metal buttons were stuck to our head. "Oh you're awake." His grin made me boil with anger.

The others woke up too, seconds apart. "I have placed you all in my glorious creation. Whatever you have experienced in the past few minutes was not real but created by your negative thoughts." None of us knew what the other had experienced until The One started talking.

Instead of being strapped down Tobias was in his Hawk form encased in a metal cage.

"All of you experienced an alternate reality brought to attention by me. The negative thoughts that you would have ever since becoming an Animorph were used to make these nightmares. It took me a year to build this delicate machine and after all that, my hard work has paid off."

The others were quiet, not a word. No funny remarks from Marco. No reassuring support from Cassie. No tactical instructions from Jake. Nothing.

"You." He pointed at me with his weak Andalite arms. "Had worries of the one you love to be vulnerable again and of drastic change to your friends and family. You don't react well to change it annoys you and angers you at the best of times."

He looked at Cassie. "You had fears of your friends turning against you when you need them most. You fear the return of the Yeerks and the great war that would follow."

As soon as he turned to Marco he gulped quite comically. Not that their was anything was funny about the situation. "You are afraid of a past morphing experience and the way you thought it would end in a state of extreme negativity."

He stared at the cage that Tobias was perched in. "The nothlit was scared that his friends would think he was vulnerable and especially the one he has feelings for. He's scared that she might get killed during the course of action with this war going on. He wishes that she not fight in this war."

I didn't realize this until The One had said it. Was Tobias scared I might die while fighting? Wasn't that what the Animorphs stood for? Free or Die. He walked on his hooves up to Jake, our leader, my cousin and the only Animorphs woes we hadn't heard about.

"Finally, we have your fearless leader. Jake Berenson. His main worry was that the word Animorphs would never exist and what would happen if they didn't what would happen to them. He also worries of being a controller again."

We all knew what the other was thinking, roundabout. "I now plan to kill you in front of my Kelbrid army, starting with you." As he was pointing at Marco he used his tail-blade to slap him across the face playfully.

"And I'll end with you, what do they call you? Xena: Warrior Princess." He was having his fun but not for long.

WHAAAM!!

The metal doors burst open and in came Ax and Toby, ready for battle. Menderash and West followed with Erek walking casually into the room. What could I say? Erek was quite hard to kill. West and Ax ran up to The One to distract him off while Toby and Menderash sliced the chains off of us.

The One smiled greedily. "You may have one this time? But I run this planet and soon you won't be alive."

We walked out like nothing happened even though the five of us were thinking the same thing. What will the others think?


	41. The Plan

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 40: Ax**

We walked out of there as if it was any other building, but it wasn't. We had just walked away from the very thing we were supposed to kill. I do not know why but we did. We took a different root than the one with the dead bodies of Erica and Craig's clones.

We were nearing the location of the previous fight. But we stopped in an empty corridor. "Hey, aren't we gonna go and kick his butt, that's what we came for right?" Everyone was quiet even Prince Jake.

He must have thought their capture was his fault. **Rachel…** I didn't have an answer to her question, but West did. **We have a lot to discuss on info. But first we should get out of here, The One might bring reinforcements.**

We walked out of the building. And headed to the Andalite occupied side of the planet. It took a whole day's worth of walking but we got there. **Prince Aximili?** Several Andalite arisths galloped from their tents and came to meet me.

**What brings you here? We thought you were dead? Who are these creatures standing next to you? Why do you travel with a Hork-Bajir? Weren't they extinct?**

They were bombarding me with questions. **STOP! You go tell your highest ranking leader that I wish to have a war council gathering to discuss tactics of war. NOW!**

I turned around instead of just turning my stalk eyes, a humanistic trait. **Prince Jake, I wish to inform my people of the situation of our planet.** He looked at me with his sad and serious smile. "Please do."

I understood now what Prince Jake meant for me to learn all these years as an Animorph. He hoped I would grasp the idea of me being more of a team mate instead of the Andalite customs stating that an aristh is a slave to his superior, to his Prince. I never thought of myself as one of the Animorphs, but Prince Jake and the others they wanted me to believe that i was.

I respected him greatly; he treated me like a friend instead of a servant. **Thank you, Prince Jake.**

Approximately eighteen minutes later I stood in front of an estimated three hundred Andalites. As I explained everything, how it started out, how I intended to end it I felt that this time we would win.

We would succeed however crazy the plan might be. **Arisths, I was once just like you. A mere child, but then I was thrust into a great battle with my friends, The Animorphs. We fought and fought against the greatest odds, but in the end we succeeded. We defeated the Yeerks and their empire was demolished. Now I will give you the chance. To assist me in defeating The One and hopefully saving the Kelbrids.**

I raised my hand in the air, along with my tail-blade signifying victory. The war cries and cheers of hundreds of my cousins made what was my sense of achievement.

We were given something similar to the human creation called the tent to discuss strategies on the coming mission.

West pointed out something very important, something we had totally forgot about. Jeanne was missing. **Prince Aximili I am pretty sure that the lion morphed clone that escaped has taken her hostage.**

He explained the fact that James, Craig and Erica were clones (even though they already knew) and that they had killed Erica and Craig already.

"I'm tired of him messing with us. We've been through hell and he still isn't dead. We end this..." He looked like he was about to break something, but he just left the transparent tent.

I gave all the arisths the job of informing the rest of our people all around the planet of what was going on and what I had told them. By now a total of 31 Andalites were left in the camp.

We had to find Jeanne before we did anything and we had to kill the clone that had most likely had captured her.

"Hey Ax. Don't get me wrong you and bubblegum blue here have got it pretty solved out, but have you tried to see it through Jeanne's eyes. She and James were kind of a couple so she may think it's not a kidnapping but a date or something. He could have told her some bogus story to get her out of their."

I considered this and again Marco had succeeded in noticing something we hadn't. "Wait to go Marco."

"Good Job." Cassie said while wiping her eyes. Erek patted Marco on the back.

We now had a solid plan and an important setback. I hoped to handle them both at the same time.

As I explained Jake's plan to Rachel and the others her face filled with excitement. "I love it."


	42. The Insect

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 41: Marco**

"INSANE!" I had to say it. First of all because what Ax and Jake were suggesting was and because its my given right, my comeback to Rachel's agreement with the plan.

Their was no point of going anywhere seeing as we had no idea where James and Jeanne were. I was sitting down on the grass playing with a bright green stick. Until it opened its eyes and started walking up my arm, that's when I freaked.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" I screamed like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.

Andalites in the camp around us were looking around for the source of screaming until they saw me. They all smiled, funnily enough without mouths.

I managed to smack it off my arm but then I ran straight into Jake and we both toppled over. I thought he might not be in the mood seeing as he was all 'Freddy Krueger' psycho earlier.

Who could blame him we were all pretty annoyed, however it was my job to cheer him and all the other Animorphs up.

"Jake, you cool right? You ain't gonna go all Jet Li/ Marco must die on me are you?" Jake started to smile, like really smile. None of that sad, serious, smile that he usually gives out.

"I'll take that as a 'Yes' Captain Picard." I helped him up as I got up myself. Cassie walked over to the walking stick insect and picked it up in her hand.

"Hey West, what are these insects. They are very similar to a type of insect on our planet." She looked at Jake as West explained to her and started smiling.

"Awwww! How sweet! Someone has a girlfriend!" I poked him playfully making sure Cassie was watching for his extra embarrassment.

"Cut it out, Marco." That's when he got all emotional on me. "Listen, before any of this crazy stuff goes down. I want you to know that I'm proud of you man."

"Stop you're gonna make me cry." I said putting on a thoughtful frown. He punched me on the arm, jokingly.

"Seriously man. We've all been through a lot and you've kept the spirits up." We did our secret handshake.

I know it sounds lame but hey, it was a moment. Even if we were twenty two years old.

"So what do we do about the situation?" I asked Jake as soon as we were done with our tender phase.

He thought hard for a while until he came upon an idea. "I think some of us should stay here and prepare and the others go on a hunt to find Jeanne and bring her back safely."

"I'll go Jake." We turned around to see Rachel standing their in her morphing suit just like the others.

"Are you sure?" She looked at him and nodded her head quite violently. "Okay, but I'm sending Tobias with you."

"Jake? I wanna go too." This time it was Cassie, and Jake was real hard to persuade to let her go.


	43. The Riddance

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 42: Tobias**

Me, Rachel and Cassie. The ones in charge of finding Jeanne, and killing James the clone. Rachel and Cassie were walking side by side in front of me.

Rachel was angry at me. Anyone could tell. It was because what happened when we got captured. I thought I'd try a making it up to her.

"Hey Rachel, so where are we going? What's the plan?" She swerved round in a tenth of a second.

"The plan is that I'm gonna get myself killed just to disobey you. Don't you think I have a right to fight?" I tried to answer but she wasn't done.

"Rach…"

"DON'T I GET TO SAVE THE WORLD?" Cassie was standing just as quiet as me.

"I…"

"No. Don't give me your 'I've had it bad' crap. I looked after you. I cared for you. All those years trapped as a Hawk. It was me, the one who tried not to show my pity just so you could feel better about yourself. Just because I died, I'm supposed to be the most likely to die next."

"Rachel, that's what I felt. I can't change that. But I love you and I…"

"If you love me you won't stop me from doing my part in the war."

"I do love you." She needed time to chill out so I demorphed and followed them from the sky.

I hoped she would forgive me soon because I needed her, and her strength. As I followed them I listened in on their conversation.

"Are you still mad at Tobias?" Cassie asked a fuming Rachel.

"You know he's right behind us listening to everything we say." Cassie nodded and Rachel understood as well. Cassie was trying to let Rachel know that what it was I could do to get back in her good books.

Just before she was about to answer I already had a sufficient idea how to make it up to her. I let the air feel the presence of my wings and flew down to land on Cassie's shoulder.

**We have Kelbrids approaching; I count three of them and their heading this way.**

I took advantage of the sweet thermals on the Andalite homeworld and flew off into the sky against the Kelbrids.

See I think I had figured out the Kelbrids flying tactics. They knew we were here on the Andalites planet so they were prepared to fight against us but not against the morph I was in.

Last time I fought a Kelbrid in the air it was raining and it ended out in a draw, but I had the Kelbrids all figured out.

The first one was waiting with its blades out ready but I swerved my wings to the left and came out behind him he looked for me here and there but I came over him and scratched his eyes away leaving blood all over his black face.

The second one didn't expect me seeing as I was hiding behind the flailing body of a blind Kelbrid. I flew up and took his sight away just as easy.

"Go Tobias and I thought he needed help."

Now remained the third, he looked bigger than the other Kelbrids but I wasn't intimidated. I swerved left and right trying to confuse him until he pulled out an extremely long silver gun. He pushed the trigger and out came a rope that pulled me in like Scorpion did on Mortal Kombat.

As soon as I was close enough my body collided with his horns and I was paralyzed. As I fell I heard Rachel yelling.

"TOBIAS!"

"Good riddance. Filthy nothlit." I hit the ground and drifted off into a place of darkness and pain.


	44. The Shelter

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 43: Jake**

We were about to end this war. Me and my friends, like a guerrilla troop. Head to head with The One and his evil army of Kelbrids.

"Hey Jake."

"Yeah?" I said hoping it wasn't another joke.

"We defeated the Yeerks and saved the world."

"Yeah I kinda noticed as I screwed up near the end of it."

It was totally true and I thought about it every single day.

"Seeing as they were controlling people and like trying to rule the world with Visser Three/One leading them. But then after all that we have another threat from a mind-controlling super being who says he will take over and planet and guess what, he's taken control of our good buddy War Prince Alloran who was the Visser's host body for like years. Ironic, huh?"

I made my eyebrows go up as I rolled my eyes and shrugged my shoulders.

"Yeah it actually is. You actually said something that makes sense for the first time in your life."

He laughed. "Ha. With an extra Ha just for you." He put his hand on to my shoulder and leaned in close.

"Well there's a first time for everything."

He walked off to go help Ax build the fortress. Part of mine and Ax's plan was to make a fortress for the Andalite warriors. From there the remaining Andalite Princes could spy on the Kelbrids and then attack with their shredders and shoot them out of the sky.

Plus they had West and Menderash with them to take care of some action.

I got the idea from when me and Marco built one in 5th grade. During the time we came back from summer camp. When we were normal and not alien fighting super freaks.

When we weren't Animorphs.

"Hey, come help us out Jake."

I walked up to Marco, West, Ax and Toby.

"So what's the problem?" Marco looked at me as if I should have realized something by now, but then again he could have had too many white berries that we found.

We have finished making the exterior of the fortress. But we are concerned how to camouflage it.

Erek walked over to us. "I think I have an idea?"

Turns out Erek had told us to use these huge leaves which he saw on our various day-long treks we made. From then on Ax decided to use the sap of the Hablu tree to stick them on and make it look real.

The Andalites would now have a fully functioning shelter and the Kelbrids an incoming surprise attack on them.


	45. The Buffalo

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 44: Cassie**

Rachel began to morph with the remaining Kelbrid just a minute away. I stopped her, with good reason.

"Don't morph." She looked at me with her still fuming face; her soft cheeks all red from anger.

"You won't be able to morph fast enough." She understood and that's when I ran for it. "Where are you going?" I answered as I kept running.

"Split up. Hide and morph. Then we take him out."

I felt like Jake now making the battle plans, and I knew how he must feel with all the life and death situations he faces. I had always known.

I went left and Rachel went right. I kept running looking back every now and then. After a while I noticed that the remaining Kelbrid had gone for Rachel instead of me.

I decided to use my African Cape Buffalo morph, because then I could take the Kelbrid out with my horns like one did to me back on Earth.

**There you are?**

I swiveled round just as I was done morphing to find a big, bold male lion coming up towards me.

**You thought you could punch me in the face while we were walking and then just run off. Who do you think is gonna win?**

If I talked he would know I wasn't Jeanne, but he still wouldn't let me go. But if I didn't he would keep on thinking the same thing. But how long would I be able to keep that up?

**Come on. Answer me? Who would win? A Buffalo or a fully grown Lion?**

HRROOWAAAR!!

They say the roar of a lion or a tiger make people wet their pants. But I was an African Cape Buffalo and I wasn't going to give up that easy.

James out of nowhere pounced but I was quick enough to determine his move. His claws got me on my sides, it stung quite a lot.

Although I managed to head butt him full in the face leaving him temporarily dismayed. I got out of there hoping that he lost track of me.

He would expect me to stay in morph and run away but I demorphed and remorphed as quickly as possible behind a brightly coloured trunk of a tree.

I was now a wolf, able to run for a day and not tire one bit.** Cassie?** It was the real Jeanne in her buffalo morph.

**Hey Jeanne we need to get out of here. James is…**

He jumped out of nowhere and went straight for Jeanne, who he thought to be me who he thought to be her. Confusing, but no time for that now.

He didn't even notice me. I jumped on top of him and bit down hard on his lower back. I felt the blood seeping out and him slowing down. He pushed me off and clawed me pretty bad.

We both now had to demorph or we would die with our morphs. As we were human I ran up to him and sucker punched him in the face, he didn't expect it but it still hurt him.

He held his face and I looked at Jeanne to see if she was still alive. She was breathing but she was unconscious and losing blood fast.

I looked around to see James looking very angry at me.

SMAAACK!!

He punched me in the face and my head felt as if a bomb exploded inside of it. I was bleeding through my mouth with definitely a few teeth out of place. This time it was real not a dream like when Rachel punched me in the torture chamber.

I fell to the ground too tired to get up and saw a lion looming over me.


	46. The Lion

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 45: Rachel**

Cassie made a run for it. "Where are you going?" I asked hoping she had a reasonable explanation.

"Split up. Hide and Morph. Then we take them out."

Since when was Cassie the one giving instructions. Not that I didn't mind her taking the lead because I'm no good at it. Maybe she had been hanging around with my cousin way too much.

The Kelbrid was about ten feet away from getting me. I ran for my life. No time to worry about how Tobias was probably bleeding to death.

Now I just had to worry about myself. Marco once told me that looking behind you doesn't help you. I looked back to find it closer than I thought.

Like Marco and now I said. It doesn't help.

He was getting closer and closer. And I was getting tired of running constantly. I kept changing direction so I would be able find Cassie later.

SMAAACK!!

He had gotten close enough to use his shield to put me off-balance. The shield caught me on my shoulder and I flipped in the air as I dropped to the floor. The reason I had flipped over was because of the speed I was going at.

"Clumsy, human girl. Tell me where the others are and I may let you live although I daresay they won't see the sunrise again." He started laughing as he landed on the ground and edged towards me.

I picked up a huge brightly coloured rock and threw it at him. He was hit in the stomach and he went down on the ground. It was his weak point and he was out of the fight.

That's when another two Kelbrids saw their friend knocked out on the floor. They decided to come for me. I had thrown the rock with my left arm because my right shoulder was dislocated from the impact of the shield.

I got up knowing how much toil my muscles were to bear and kept running.

FLIT!

Razor sharp throwing stars flew just inches away from me. Hold up, they were a different pattern to throwing stars but they still looked like them. The Kelbrids had everything.

This time I didn't look back I just kept running. Until I saw ahead of me a huge plank-like tree trunk sticking out of the side of the edge of a cliff.

The Kelbrids were just seconds away and I knew just what to do. The edge of the cliff was surrounded by hundreds of trees leaving it hidden from their sight. They would come out and not notice the big cliff.

They came out approximately seven seconds later. And like I said didn't notice the whole me standing on the horizontal tree trunk with a big branch to hit them with.

WHAAAM!!

The first one didn't expect it and was knocked off the cliff by me and my stick, but the second one was not as stupid. He tried to knock me off the plank. If I was off the plank I would fall to my death.

But somehow in the two seconds that it took for him to reach me I had done a successful one handed cart wheel over his hard shelled body. He ended up falling off the cliff.

The only way I was able to pull off that cartwheel was due to the Kelbrid being so low to the ground. I heard a roar, a lion's roar.

For a second I thought David. But then I came to my senses. I didn't have the guts to kill David, I had left him. I had run away, crying. I never found out what had happened to him.

I walked into a more wide area of Andalite forest and morphed Elephant. You see with a bear he might have a chance to win. But with my morph I am able to kill a lion with a single blow of my trunk.

I was close now seeing as I heard someone's teeth break. Was it Cassie's? I burst through a bunch of trees to find Cassie on the floor blood flowing from her face and James in his lion morph walking up to her. Jeanne lay dead in her Cape buffalo morph.

He tried to attack me but I got him first with my trunk. He died instantly. It had to be done. He would have killed Cassie. I demorphed and went to help Cassie. She was alive but her teeth were knocked out and her face was badly bruised.

I woke her up and told her to morph.

"I'm tired." She said, the agony reflecting in her eyes.

"I know. I'm tired too."

I sat their on an unfamiliar planet watching my best friend breathe pain with every breath.


	47. The Tired

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 46: Ax**

Menderash and I got first shift on the lookout shelter that we had built. We were to look for any intruders: most likely the Kelbrids.

Prince Jake and Marco were asleep in the transparent tent using the giant leaves that we made the shelter with as blankets.

Menderash was standing quietly looking out through the open hole of the entrance. The shelter covered the whole side on the left whereas the right was left open for people to climb up.

My Andalite friends could not use the shelter because it was built up between two trees. We had been waiting for 4 hours and seen nothing but a few Kafit birds fly by near the sunset.

**Menderash?** He turned around from his base to see what I wanted.

**I am getting quite restless like the male humans of a show called the young and the restless.** He had a confused face on him.

**Don't worry. I meant to say I was bored. Are you holding up well?** He stared at me with a kind face. **Yes Prince Aximili. I am well after all I am truly an Andalite warrior just like you.**

**Does being a nothlit affect you Menderash? Because I know for a fact I would not be able to cope. My what humans would call nephew Tobias has handled it well although I notice it is hard for him.**

He nodded to show that he understood.

**He is a true shorm. When I was stuck on earth with nothing to do but fight side-by-side with my friends, he would keep me company**.

Menderash looked horrified for some reason and then he rushed down the ladder made by Prince Jake and Marco. I morphed to northern harrier and flew down to the ground to find Rachel carrying a bleeding Cassie.

I demorphed as quickly as possible and galloped towards them.

**Go get Prince Jake.** Menderash ran towards the tent to wake him up.

What happened? I asked a panting Rachel. She didn't reply because she didn't have the energy after carrying Cassie.

"Ax, get Jake. We need to talk to Jake."

**He's coming Rachel, he's coming.**

Jake appeared with Marco behind him. "Cassie? Rachel?" He walked over and saw Cassie and her swollen face. He didn't speak just; lifted Cassie in his arms took her into her the tent.

Rachel tried to get up and used my shoulder to lift herself up. "Marco, help Rachel inside." Marco put his hand round her waist and helped her walk.

Five minutes later, we had Cassie awake. "Jake?" She put her hand on his face and Prince Jake accepted it by putting his hand over hers. "I'm here Cassie. Try and morph."

She was morphing extremely slowly. While she was Rachel explained what had happened. "We were attacked by three Kelbrids. Two were taken out by Tobias but the third got the better of him. The remaining was too close so me and Cassie split up and he followed me but I took him out."

She paused to take a breath with Prince Jake, Marco, Menderash and I hanging on to every word.

"Two more came for me but I took care of them too but with getting my shoulder dislocated in the process. I heard a lion's roar so I morphed elephant. When I actually got their I found Cassie lying on the ground bleeding, Jeanne dead and James about to kill Cassie in lion morph."

Everyone had faces filled with suspense, like a book that you cannot put down.

"I killed James with one blow from my trunk and brought Cassie. I couldn't find Tobias because he fell too far way from us."

Rachel began to cry which she did not do often. Cassie was already demorphing from wolf but no-one had noticed.

Marco put his hand round Rachel's shoulders and held her while she cried. Surprisingly Rachel held on to him and cried into his arm. I saw that Marco had not used any sarcasm or jokes due to the serious matter of Tobias missing. My shorm, my best friend was gone.

Cassie sat up. "Sorry Rachel." She too went to comfort her friend. Prince Jake had relaxed a little knowing that Cassie was okay. He walked over to me.

"Is it normal to get that tired?" He asked me. He was talking about Cassie.

**It isn't always physical if you understand what I am trying to say?** He nodded.

"We need to find Tobias. Tonight."


	48. The HorkBajir

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 47: Marco**

I felt sorry for Rachel. Like genuinely sorry. Tobias was gone and she was blaming herself. Cassie was better now but she was still looked beat.

We had learned a long time ago that too much mental stress causes you to mess up your morphing. I personally went through it during the Yeerk saga.

That's what I called it. Me and Jake were going to go find Tobias. We packed the white berries and edible leaves we found and some dew from the Hablu tree for energy. Surprisingly it tasted a lot like Mountain Dew.

"You ready Jake?" I asked my best friend. We had been friends since little. And now we were fully grown men going on a rescue mission. He winked to show he was.

Jeanne was gone, never to be seen again. We had never lost so many of our team members. I mean we had managed for three years with none of us dying. Not until Rachel.

She was dubbed the Forgotten Animorph along with Tobias on Earth.

She had killed James and had in turn saved Cassie from being killed. That was three people she had killed intentionally. Three if you count David. The Animorph gone bad. For a whole few days he had us fooled and supposedly killed Jake, Tobias and soon he would take the rest of us.

He had not succeeded and was taken out. He came back but again he was stopped, but how none of us know except for Rachel.

**Prince Jake, please come see this.**

Ax had called him outside and I followed. Quite a few of the Andalites were grazing outside in the dead of the night. The rest were probably off eating through their hooves.

Rachel and Cassie were lying down and resting although it seemed like Rachel was more worried about Tobias than her sleep. West was out with some the other Andalites getting some food for us Animorphs as a gesture of friendship.

There in the far off shadows stood someone or should I say something. It was holding something like a dead body, but of what?

It was walking up to us. Slowly revealing itself.

That's when I noticed what it truly was. Out of the shadows stepped a 7ft killing machine.

It was a Hork-Bajir and what was interesting was the fact that it was dragging the body of a dead Kelbrid. As it came closer, the Andalites that were around us stood in a perfect line behind Ax.

We were standing next to Ax as he came closer. The Hork-Bajir walked all the way to us and stood in front of Jake.

FWAAAP!!

Ax's tail-blade shifted in a split-second to the Hork-Bajir's throat. **Tell me who you are my Hork-Bajir friend or my blade will move further.**

The Hork-Bajir dropped the Kelbrid making me jump a little. No-one else did. Jake looked closely at the deceased Kelbrid on the floor.

**Chill Ax. It's me, Tobias.**

We all watched in awe as Tobias demorphed. Waiting to bombard him with questions.

Hoping to get a few answers as well.


	49. The Explanation

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 48: Tobias**

I was done demorphing and everyone had a lot of questions to ask. I didn't have time to answer them. Where's Rachel and Cassie?

"Relax dude, they are A-team okay." Marco pointed to the tent as he was talking. I walked past them all while Jake asked me something.

"Tobias. Where are you going?" He asked while I entered the tent. I looked around to find a few extra swords belonging to Menderash. To the side were Cassie and Rachel lying on giant leaves.

I went to walk up to them. "Hello Tobias I see you've arrived back safely." I had not noticed Erek sitting in the corner with a dreamy look on his face.

"Good to see you Erek." He smiled with a holographic face of a man the same age as me.

"I was just reading a book for some helpful research." I looked around to see where the book was when I realized that Erek had thousands of books stored in his brain.

"I'll leave you alone." He left even though I had not asked him to. I walked over to Rachel and knelt down. She was lying down with her eyes closed just like Sleeping Beauty.

I watched her for a few moments admiring her radiance. As bent down and pressed my lips against hers she started to kiss me back as her hands came up to my face and mine went down to her waist.

Marco suddenly burst in. "Tobias we need… Oh sorry. I'll, i'll, and I'll just leave." He shielded his eyes as he noticed what was really going on.

He left the tent while Rachel and I got up and went out after him. Rachel walked straight up to Marco with an angry face and shaking fists.

"Can't you knock?" He rolled his eyes.

"I don't know if you noticed honey, but it's a tent. Not much to knock on."

Rachel went red hot and then cooled down after a few silent seconds. Ax approached me walking gracefully with his four legs.

"Tobias tell us what happened? How did you survive seeing as Rachel and Cassie saw you plummet towards the ground?"

I had to answer them now. I couldn't hold it off any longer. I drew a breath and began to speak.

"As soon as I was down I was knocked unconscious."

"Tobias!" Cassie was awake and ran over to hug me. It was nice of her. We didn't really talk much to each other during the war except for during battles. But people said we were quite similar.

"Keep going Bird-boy." Marco said staring at me and Cassie.

"I woke up behind a tree and demorphed as quick as possible. I morphed human to find two of the stupidest Kelbrids ever."

Marco started to giggle, it was quite disturbing. I ignored him and continued.

"They were sitting their waiting for me to turn into an Andalite so they could attack. So I did what they wanted."

Rachel tightened her grip on my arm signaling me to continue.

"One of them died quickly because I got him in a weak spot but the other was still alive so I went Hork-Bajir and dragged him all the way here."

They were burning holes into my head from their intense stares.

"Also before one died I got some info off him. They say that The One is calling all Kelbrids to a certain place tomorrow where he has five huge ships which the Kelbrids will use to find us and kill us once and for all."


	50. The 2nd

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 49: Jake**

We were in the air above an empty planet. No Kelbrids. No Andalites.

The Kelbrids had left to receive orders from their master to kill us and the Andalites.

While Andalites were off getting ready to defend their planet from a raid of Kelbrids.

We Animorphs were the only people who could stop this violence and we were on our way to do just that. The plan was simple and insane.

We were to board on all five of the ships and damage them enough to make them unable to move. Then hopefully while that happened no one would notice us.

Then while the others and I would be disarming spaceships, Ax would be pretending to have gone to The One's side.

Going on to attack The One, when he thinks we will be hiding. But I still had one decision to make.

**Guys, to the ground I need to talk to you.**

We swooped down in our various, useful bird morphs and landed on the ground near a patch of clean, colorful grass.

Everyone sort of understood that I wanted to talk them in person. As soon as they were done demorphing I began to speak.

"Alright guys I don't want to get all emotional on you so we'll just leave that aside, although I do have one more thing I need you to vote on."

They all were listening but had other things clouding their mind.

Ax stood there on four, strong blue legs that ended with deer like hooves. Looking around with his stalk eyes, for signs of a sudden ambush.

Cassie was sitting down on something like a log, trying to see through me and find something of a solution to a problem she thinks I have.

Marco was propped up against a big tree with his arms crossed and looking quite relaxed even though he was thinking…

INSANE!

Tobias was down on the floor looking at the grass with the intense gaze of a Hawk.

"You need to vote whether we take out each ship together or just go and take out one ship per person."

Everyone was quiet for some reason until Marco spoke up.

"I think we all know the answer that the others will pick. We go with the second one."

Marco was right. The others didn't complain because they agreed.

"Second plan it is. I want you all to go Kelbrid and don't blow your cover. I don't need any one else to die."

I morphed while watching the others go through the same process. Once we were fully morphed I hovered over to Ax.

You ready Ax? He closed his eyes and opened them lightly.

That's when five Kelbrids ripped their shields off and pointed them at Ax making him walk ahead.

By Kelbrids, I mean us.

This was our infamous plan in motion and I just hoped it would work out.


	51. The Insolence

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 50: Cassie**

We left Ax once we got near to the army of Kelbrids. Jake, Marco, Tobias had all gone on a different ship with info on how to disable it from our tech whiz. Ax.

Who was right now standing in front of one of the strongest beings in the universe who has his own army of warriors to dispense.

I flew to the ship and landed down in front of two guards.

"You are not allowed in."

He pulled out his shield from his back in a threatening way. The Kelbrids had good eyesight so anything sneaky may be noticed.

"No need to get your shield sharpened. I am here to check the engines for our glorious master."

He looked at me, studied me with small green eyes.

"Okay. You can never be sure where the enemy is."

He let me pass and I relaxed enough to breathe. I walked inside to find an empty ship and no idea what Ax meant when he explained where the engine was.

I thought I might try asking one of the Kelbrids guarding the ship but that would most definitely give away my position.

Should have listened to Ax explain but I had been worrying too much about Jake. It was a silly mistake.

Walking and walking around the ship endlessly looking for something to help me find the engines.

As I walked round I would see other Kelbrids here and there just testing the different components and parts of the ship.

I spent nearly two hours just walking around the biggest ship I had ever seen.

After all that time I decided to hide in a small room and remorph the Kelbrid. Had to find that engine room I thought as I demorphed in a room similar to the janitor's closet at my old high school.

I was nearly done demorphing to human when…

WHAAAM!!

In burst a huge Kelbrid. He was like The Terminator compared to other Kelbrids.

He had his shell blades out in a very suggestive way. Suggesting he would cut me to pieces if I didn't move out of the closet and into open area.

I walked in front of him while he made sure I didn't morph suddenly.

"You better not try anything human. I have amazing combat skills, enough to even have a one on one fight with an Andalite."

As some Kelbrids saw us they would laugh and use their floppy arms to most likely congratulate him.

It was the first Kelbrid gesture I had seen. Due to the fact that I had spent my time fighting them.

We came out into the open and the Kelbrid guards that let me in laughed. But Terminator Kelbrid stopped him with a killer serious look that would give Tobias's Hawk gaze a run for his money.

"You should not laugh. You will be punished for your insolence."

This wasn't good for me or them.


	52. The Cavalry

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 51: Rachel**

I found the engine room and entered cautiously.

Surrounded by lights and technologically advanced circuitry made me quite nervous but I knew exactly what to do.

I reached for the lighted touch screen and began to work my stuff.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE ENGINE ROOM?"

Two Kelbrid guards caught me and took me to a communications base on the ginormous ship. They contacted The One and he handed out a bunch of orders.

"What do we do with this rogue Kelbrid sire?" His triangular face showing enthusiasm.

"Bring that thing to me. I know exactly what is behind its mask." He smiled once again with evil teeth.

As I walked to my most likely 2nd death I wished of one last hope to go down fighting but I knew that wasn't an option.

The One had let us live long enough. We were now code red priority, we wouldn't be going anywhere.

The One would most likely kill us in front of his league of extraordinary Kelbrid men. It was the end.

I had arrived on a small stage built of wood. There a few feet away stood War Prince Alloran, once an enemy, then an ally, and now again a villain controlled by a powerful being known as The One.

In front of him on their knees were the others. All around the stage were Kelbrids. Different shapes and sizes like handbags or shoes.

Weird huh? For me to be thinking about accessories I could get at the mall when I was to be slaughtered in front of thousands of aliens on a distant planet from my own.

The one began to speak with a loud amplified voice.

"AND NOW WE SHALL WITNESS THE EVENT OF THE CENTURY! THE PROSECUTION OF THE NOBLE AND FOOLISH GROUP WHO CALL THEMSELVES THE ANIMORPHS! I KNOW THEY ARE NOT ALL OF THEM ALTHOUGH THE OTHERS ARE IRRELEVANT. THEY CAN BE DESTROYED WITH EASE."

The Kelbrids cheered, laughed and enjoyed our rotten luck.

We were all going to die. Now was the moment. We had failed The Ellimist. Not that he mattered. He put this upon us with his sustained war with Crayak.

The Andalites were going to be left by themselves. Soon enough The One would take full control of their planet. A Kelbrid shoved me on my knees next to Marco.

I looked at him and he looked at me. At that moment we both thought the same thing. We didn't even get to live our lives, get married or have kids. Not to each other but to whoever we choose eventually.

That's when we finally saw some good news. Far off in the distance, came thousands of what looked like blue deers.

Leading them was a human man armed with swords and Dracon beams and a Hork-Bajir armed with an extravaganza of blades all over his body and last but not least a seemingly normal young man who was really an android.

They were our saviors and our seemingly long shot hope for a fighting chance. Now the real fun would begin.


	53. The Circuits

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 52: Ax**

Fights all around me. My Andalite cousins had come to assist. I felt both proud and sad that most of them would most likely sacrifice their lives.

Prince Jake was a tiger and had pounced off the stage onto a Kelbrid. He was heading over to the ships, not sure whether he was going to destroy them or board one of them.

Rachel, Marco and Tobias followed as a bear, a gorilla and a hawk.

I was surrounded by Kelbrids and Andalites until Toby pushed through knocking three Kelbrids out of the sky.

Erek the Chee followed apparently unharmed with a look of despair on his face. He was saddened by the constant pain and suffering around him.

**We have to get out of here Toby. Prince Jake has gone to get a ship.** She nodded in agreement until a huge Kelbrid attacked her from behind.

They began to fight and she signaled me to leave without her. She would probably catch up with us as soon as she was done.

**Come Erek.** He looked at me and then followed me out of the chaos of the battle.

We finally reached to see Prince Jake, Rachel, Tobias and Marco boarding the second ship to our left.

I followed them into the ship and me and Erek ended up in the main control room. We walked in and saw them standing at the end of the room as humans trying to figure out the controls. Tobias was perched up near the roof of the room.

**Riding an alien spaceship without your Andalite pilot?** They turned around happy to see me and Erek alive.

"Oh, my boy Ax has got jokes." Marco put his thumbs up as he was talking.

"Good to see you alive." Prince Jake said surprisingly calmly.

**Hey Ax-man.**

**Thank you Prince Jake. Hello Tobias.**

"Well come help us with these controls so we can get this thing started." Rachel of course wanted to start up the ship as soon as possible.

I went over to the controls and started up the engines. The others were blasted back by the force of the ship but it was alright after a few minutes.

"Die Android scum!" A Kelbrid stood their armed with a Dracon. Before anyone could react he had pulled the trigger.

TSEEEEEW!!

Erek was blasted back against a side wall and he came to fall hard on the ground. Now that the Kelbrid had shot Erek it went for us.

But his eyes were scraped out of their sockets by Tobias whom the Kelbrid had not noticed.

Rachel and Marco went to check on Erek who had his hologram flashing on and off like a faulty light bulb.

"His circuits are fried. He needs to repair."

**We needed to repair them but how?** Prince Jake too thought about the possibilities of what would happen if we didn't fix him.

"Jake." Erek said. "If I am not fixed soon I will begin to lose memory and soon enough my brain will be gone and I will be what you would call dead."


	54. The Reboot

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 53: Marco**

It had happened once before. Not to Erek but to the android playing his father, Mr. King. When I had intentionally saved my father from becoming a controller and therefore told him all about the Animorphs.

He had to stay with the Chee for a few days while we figured out how to solve the situation. Me and Erek came up with the idea of faking mine and my father's death.

It worked but like Erek now, Mr. King had damaged his true body. He was fixed, I don't know how but Erek did.

**Prince Jake we are just above where we were when the fight begun. What do we plan to do?**

"Ax. I got the ship to follow The One. He's taken Cassie." We were all surprised. We were too preoccupied with the past events to even think about Cassie.

"Why didn't tell you us?" Rachel wasn't too happy with Jake or that withheld piece of information.

"It's because I have an idea how we can get her back." I wondered what plan my boy Jake would come up with now.

**Prince Jake we are still mobile. What do you want me to do?** Jake turned Sergeant Serious in like two seconds flat.

"Is their any way we can see the progress of the fight below?" Ax nodded and seconds later the screen appeared in thousands of blue and black dots: Andalites and Kelbrid.

Among them was one green dot and one beige. "Who's the green one? There's a whitish one too."

It is most likely Menderash and Toby. The others watched while staring at the still hurt Erek.

"Jake. I'll fix Erek he can talk me through it." Erek looked at me with his natural robotic form.

"Okay. If its cool with Erek."

"It's okay even though I have lived for thousands of years I would like to live to see the future of human technology."

I went to grab a toolbox full of weird looking machinery without consulting Erek.

"That stuff will work alright. Now just pick up that red bent one that looks like a screwdriver. Then use it to pull out that metal pad near where the stomach is situated."

It wasn't hard I did as he said and once opening the pad I found a bunch of wires.

"Pull the red one out and the blue one and then stick them together using that gun in the toolbox." I did that too and more and more and more while Erek told me step by step.

"Now the last thing is you need to shut me off and then pull out my self destruct module." Self Destruct was not what I needed to hear.

"What?" He nodded with his dog like face.

"You can do it. All those times I pretended to be you while you and the guys were off on long missions. Help me out."

"Yeah well. You never did it well seeing as I was a slob and never cleaned my room." He laughed, probably seconds before his death.

I turned him off and pulled out the self destruct. I turned him back on but he didn't come to life he still sat their like an overgrown toy.

"Oh my God have I killed him." Ax and the others turned around from the control panel.

**No Marco. He is rebooting his system, it will take time.** I relaxed for a second until…

"NOOOOOOO!"

"What's wrong?" Jake looked at me and then pointed to the screen which was still showing blue and black dots but there was no longer a green or a beige dot.

"Is that what I think that means?" Ax began to explain.

**Other blue and black dots have been disappearing here and there so most likely it will mean that Menderash and Toby have died. Just like all the other Kelbrids and Andalites. I can't be sure this is just a guess but it seems to be the most likely answer.**

It was hard to accept. Toby had been the first seer, the first Hork-Bajir born into freedom. Menderash too was really cool. I mean I talked to him often when he was alone guiding The Rachel through space.

Tobias came down from near the roof and began to morph. "Where is The One and why hasn't he shot at us yet." I asked.

Without the answer I still realized by myself that The One was ready for a trade. Who would he take instead of Cassie?


	55. The Goodbye

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 54: Tobias**

Jake. That's who The One would take. It was obvious and I wondered whether Jake would go through with it.

What was I thinking? Of course he would. This was Cassie we were talking about the girl Jake wanted to marry. Yeah, he told me on our way to help the Andalites on The Animorphobile.

"No Jake you aren't going alone. It's too dangerous." Jake tried to ignore Rachel's words.

"I need to. Don't you see? Cassie is with the enemy. The One, who has one of us. One of the Animorphs. Your best friend."

He pointed at Rachel. "It's not right Jake. Why can't one of us go?"

"Because I'm in charge Marco. Because we need more people like Cassie in the world. Because I don't deserve to live after putting countless members of our team to death. Toby, Jeanne, Menderash, James, Craig, Erica, Timmy, Colette and you Rachel. My own cousin. All these people are dead because of me. I couldn't even show mercy to seventeen thousand harmless Yeerks."

**The One's ship is approaching. Shall I put him on video screen?** I saw Jake give Ax the nod.

I was in human morph because I wanted to be able to see the video screen in front of me; I wanted to be part of the action for once as human.

Not as a trapped animal forced to live the life of a predator, a raptor. Something I had been cursed with on my first mission as an Animorph.

My friends thought that I liked life as a hawk better than a human. They would have been right a few years ago.

However I now thought otherwise. I had not really hated being human, I had hated being me. The one that got his head stuffed in a toilet or bullied ever so often.

They would think I wanted to be human for Rachel, who did I guess. She wanted what I wanted.

What would I do if I ever did get the chance to become human again? I already had the chance, but I hadn't done anything about it.

The One's ship was extremely close to us now. Something that made me quite uncomfortable.

I had been thinking all that time and the screen had been playing a live transmission of The One the whole time.

"My ship will now latch on to yours then I want Jake and only Jake to come in no one else. And I will have proof of you being their and not on my ship."

The video transmission had ended and we waited for five minutes with silence from most of us. I saw that Erek was out of view of the screen so The One had not seen him.

I walked over to him seeing as everyone else was quiet and not paying attention. I walked quietly over to Erek. A small screen on his chest said:

REBOOT 98...99...100 COMPLETE.

He opened his eyes slowly and was about to say something but I gesture him to stay quiet and began to explain him my master plan.

Our ships came together and the doors opened up ready for Jake. Rachel went to hug him but he stepped back.

"Rachel. I don't want to do this because then it will feel like a goodbye and I won't be able to handle a goodbye."

He rubbed his unshaven face and his hair that had grown long, wild and ended up in curls. He turned around and walked away into the ship of our nemesis.


	56. The End

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Chapter 55: Jake**

I walked on to the other ship feeling empty. The doors closing behind me.

"HA! YOU ACTUALLY CARE ENOUGH FOR HER TO SPARE YOUR OWN LIFE!"

"Don't get too excited. My friends will hunt you down." He laughed again.

"Do you have any last words?" He asked. I looked at Cassie standing next to him. I had decided what I wanted to do. The last thing I wanted before I died.

I wouldn't call this a sacrifice. I thought of it as my destiny. I walked closer up to him.

"I would like to talk to Cassie. Then you can do whatever you want." He pushed her forward into my arms with the flat of his tail-blade.

I looked into her eyes. She was scared; she knew what would happen to me. I got down on one knee in front of her.

She looked shocked just as much as I was. Even The One did not say anything just to see the conversation go further.

"I wanted to die knowing that I fell in love with a beautiful down-to-earth girl. I wanted to know that we got married. I want to know that you love me."

She pulled me up, placed her hands on my face and kissed me. It was the best I had felt in a long time. I put my arms around her body. We pulled apart.

"Yes." The One was now getting impatient. "That's enough." He turned on his screen and there stood Rachel, Marco, Tobias and Ax looking sad and too quiet.

"Good. No silly attempts for a last minute attack." He gestured me to come forward and Cassie walked slowly towards the door. She wasn't crying.

She had cried enough and I was glad she wasn't anymore. "Too Easy!"

WHAAAM!

The doors burst open and in came a Gorilla, a Grizzly bear, a Hork-Bajir and an Andalite. I was somehow miraculously saved. Cassie understanding what was going on began to grow grey fur all over her body.

It was now my turn. As I morphed and saw The One cower at the edge of the room. Lost for words.

We all surrounded him. As scared as he was he asked the same question I wanted the answer to. How did you…? You were…! I saw…!"

**We had our friend Erek the Chee make a hologram of us to fool you.** Erek walked through the doors as soon as Ax was done explaining.

We were stuck now. We could not kill him because Erek had helped us making this a non violent act, but we could not leave him alive or the Kelbrids would stay the same.

"Jake. For some reason my reboot has erased my programming on violence. I understand what you have to do. Kill one evil to save thousands who are innocent."

We destroyed The One's engines and his circuitry. He would now die but not from our hands, but from our actions. None of us felt good for what had happened, but it was necessary. As they say 'All's fair in Love and War'.

We went back to check on the Kelbrids and after a while they just stopped fighting, confused by what was going on. We explained to them and left for Earth.

We didn't find Toby or Menderash or even West. Maybe they were dead or maybe not, we were probably never going to know.

We had succeeded. It was **THE END.**


	57. Epilogue

Authors note: I do not own anything except a few random minor characters and plants and insects. K.A Applegate owns the rest coz she rocks. I have previously put this story up on this website but i did not get many reviews, people were probably intimidated by reading 34 thousand something words. If i get a few reviews per chapter (hopefully constructive and nice) then i will put the next one up. Please read you won't be dissapointed my fellow hardcore Animorph fans.

For all who don't know yet the thought speech is in **bold.**

**Epilogue**

They may have won. But their still remained many decades for me to get them. I did not care how they all died but, I wanted Jake.

I wanted to see him die the way I wanted him to. I wanted to watch it, every second of pain and agony he went through till his eventual death.

I had made a deal with Ellimist. He could go save the planet of Zerra from an oncoming attack. In return for a chance for me to talk, only talk to Jake.

Jake appeared suddenly confused by what was happening. He looked in his mid 20s and was wearing a suit.

"Where am I?" He said until he saw me.

DO YOU REMEMBER ME, JAKE? WE HAVE UNFINSHED BUSINESS YOU KNOW.

"You don't intimidate me, Crayak. Sleepless nights that I spent with you in my dreams are long gone."

YOU MAY HAVE SURVIVED MY CREATION. BUT I HAVE NOT FORGOT YOU AND WHAT I SAID TO YOU IN YOUR DREAMS EVERY NIGHT.

He stared at me with an expression I didn't bother to search for in my mind.

DOES IT STILL GIVE YOU GOOSEBUMPS? DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL COLD INSIDE?

"You have failed greatly Crayak."

HOW HAVE I FAILED?

"I am not dead yet. You made all those threats. Every night but you have never fulfilled them."

IF I DID NOT HAVE A CONSTANT WAR WITH ELLIMIST, I WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU GLADLY.

"So you honor the rules just as much as the Ellimist?"

However much I wished to squeeze his matter into nothing, I could not help notice how much he had changed since the last time I entered his dreams.

IF I DID NOT HONOUR THE RULES, WE WOULD EVENTUALLY KILL EACH OTHER AND I WOULD NOT HAVE A CHANCE TO DESTROY ALL LIFE.

He looked at me, curious about something. He began to stare.

"What will you achieve from destroying all life?"

WHY WOULD I ANSWER THAT?

"Do you have anything else to say?" He smiled as soon as he was done talking.

He was no longer afraid. But that would not stop me from what I had to do. I would never stop until I had reached my goal.

AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE JAKE. SOON.


End file.
